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Inspiring and Motivating quotes from succesful CEO's

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Inspiring and Motivating quotes from succesful CEO's

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"Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser." - Donald Trump. Whoa. I'd say he is an abusive manager.

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The secret of great people is often conveyed by their words. Here is a great list of inspirational quotes from some of the best CEOs of all time. I trust that you will learn from them and make them a part of you.

The common question that gets asked in business is, 'why?' That's a good question, but an equally valid question is, 'why not?' - Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. - Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart. They are real and sustainable. Their foundations are stronger because they are built with the strength of the human spirit, not an ad campaign. The companies that are lasting are those that are authentic. - Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. - John C. Maxwell, CEO of The John Maxwell Company

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. - Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple

If you're changing the world, you're working on important things. You're excited to get up in the morning. - Larry Page, CEO of Google

To me, business isn't about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It's about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials. - Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. - Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft

I'm responsible for this company. I stand behind the results. I know the details, and I think the CEO has to be the moral leader of the company, ... I think high standards are good, but let's not anybody be confused, it's about performance with integrity. That's what you have to do. - Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric

It's in our best interest to put some of the old rules aside and create new ones and follow the consumer-what the consumer wants and where the consumer wants to go. - Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney

Capital isn't scarce. Vision is. - Sam Walton, CEO of Wal-Mart

I think as a company, if you can get those two things right - having a clear direction on what you are trying to do and bringing in great people who can execute on the stuff - then you can do pretty well. - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook

We're living at a time when attention is the new currency: With hundreds of TV channels, billions of Web sites, podcasts, radio shows, music downloads and social networking, our attention is more fragmented than ever before.Those who insert themselves into as many channels as possible look set to capture the most value. They'll be the richest, the most successful, the most connected, capable and influential among us. We're all publishers now, and the more we publish, the more valuable connections we'll make.Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Fitbit and the SenseCam give us a simple choice: participate or fade into a lonely obscurity. - Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable

I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that's how you grow. When there's that moment of 'Wow, I'm not really sure I can do this,' and you push through those moments, that's when you have a breakthrough. - Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo

Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser." - Donald Trump, CEO of Trump Organization

We will continue to build on our momentum in this important area of the world...through improved communication of our product quality, brand relevance and commitment to balanced, active lifestyles. - Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonald's

Smarter is always the answer. - Samuel J. Palmisano, CEO of IBM

I'd highly prefer to settle versus battle ... I've always hated litigation. We need people to invent their own stuff. - Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

Diversification and globalization are the keys to the future. - Fujio Mitarai, CEO of Canon

I just cannot emphasize enough what a strike would mean to us because we would absolutely be walking away from our commitments to our customers. There's just no way we would recover. - Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford

Government should support and defend its key industries through good policies, rather than what sometimes makes for good politics. - Gordon Nixon, CEO of Royal Bank of Canada

But as an entrepreneur you have to feel like you can jump out of an aeroplane because you're confident that you'll catch a bird flying by. It's an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn't come by, but a few times it does. - Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix

When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts. - Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle

The term 'too big to fail' must be excised from our vocabulary. - Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase

This indicates that employers are hiring on an as-needed basis, but are still not ready to staff up until demand for their business truly requires it. - Jeffrey Joerres, CEO of Manpowe r

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. - John D. Rockefeller, CEO of Standard Oil

TIME. IT'S THE CURRENCY OF LIFE.

But unlike money, you can't make more. You can, however, maximize each and every second you spend. Lifehack's mission is to help you make enormous gains with the limited time you have. With the insights we provide, your seconds can be worth hours, and days can be worth years in value.

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30 Most Inspirational Quotes By Successful CEOs

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The secret of great people is often conveyed by their words. Here is a great list of inspirational quotes from some of the best CEOs of all time. I trust that you will learn from them and make them a part of you. The common question that gets asked in business is, 'why?'

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Marvel's Vice President accidentally said something insensitive that lead people to believe he meant people didn't want any more diversity.

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Over the past few years, Marvel Entertainment has made an effort to add more diversity to its lineup of predominantly white male superheroes. In addition to featuring more female and minority characters, they have introduced alternate versions of classic heroes, like a black Captain America, a Korean Hulk, a female Thor and a half-Latino, half-African-American Spider-Man. An African-American woman also donned Iron Man's armor, while a Muslim-American teenager became the new Ms. Marvel.

Marvel's push for diversity makes sense: The success of superhero movies has helped raise interest in comic books worldwide, while demographic trends suggest that the United States itself is becoming more diverse. Developing characters for people of all backgrounds is therefore a smart business strategy.

So it was surprising when Marvel Vice President David Gabriel said in an interview with pop culture trade publication ICv2 that diversity was actually hurting comic book sales as people were "turning their noses up" at the new heroes. "What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity," he said. The comments sparked outrage from those who thought that diversity was being unfairly used as a scapegoat for company-wide sales declines. Gabriel and Marvel scrambled to clarify that these sales concerns were only based on the opinions of certain comic book retailers and that many of the new characters were actually among Marvel's most popular.

Marvel's rush to explanation illustrated a new sensitivity to the effect diversity can have on corporate reputations and, in some cases, bottom lines. For example, a recent controversy surrounding Ghost in the Shell, a remake of a Japanese anime movie, demonstrated the financial impact diversity-or lack thereof-can have in entertainment today. Before the movie's release, critics levelled charges of "whitewashing"-using Caucasian actors to play non-white roles-when Scarlett Johansson was cast as a character who was originally Japanese. When the movie opened to disappointing U.S. box office numbers, the producers suggested that the whitewashing outcry may have been partly to blame. "We had hopes for better results domestically," Kyle Davies, Paramount's head of domestic distribution, told CBC News. "I think the conversation regarding casting impacted the reviews."

Hollywood often defends whitewashing by claiming that films need recognizable stars to maximize box office potential, but the Ghost in the Shell fallout shows that diversity may be starting to trump celebrity for some audiences. Plus, with overseas markets now accounting for as much as 70% of a film's total gross, diverse casting that appeals to broader audiences could boost those box office numbers even more.

Diversity can no longer be considered just a trendy business buzzword. A 2015 McKinsey report found that public companies in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry median, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have above-median returns. The results echo a 2014 Gallup survey that found gender-diverse business units in retail saw higher revenues and, in hospitality, higher profits, than less diverse units. Researchers have consistently found that diversity not only improves the bottom line, but makes companies more innovative, helps them attract and retain talent, and, as Marvel and Hollywood are now learning, allows them to better serve a diverse customer base that is increasingly demanding products that reflect their reality too.

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Over the past few years, Marvel Entertainment has made an effort to add more diversity to its lineup of predominantly white male superheroes. In addition to featuring more female and minority characters, they have introduced alternate versions of classic heroes, like a black Captain America, a Korean Hulk, a female Thor and a half-Latino, half-African-American Spider-Man.

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What happens when you switch around the phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally"?
"Think Locally, Act Globally"

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Thanks to the internet, global reach is no longer reserved for deep-pocketed brands, nor is it an incredible hassle for already over-burdened marketing managers.

In fact, a global presence is possible for any business with a creative strategy and an understanding of world markets.

What is good global marketing?

To give you an idea of what a great global marketing strategy looks like, we've compiled a list of brands that totally "get it."

From adapting their social strategies to translate across multiple languages to adjusting their menus to appeal to the cravings of a diverse group of people, these brands are taking positive steps towards creating a solid presence across the globe.

So if you're looking for inspiration on how to craft a successful international marketing strategy and expand your business' reach, check out these examples from 13 successful companies.

13 Companies We Admire for Brilliant International Marketing

1) Red Bull

Austrian company Red Bull does such a great job with global marketing that many Americans assume it's a local brand. How?

One of its most successful tactics is to host extreme sports events all over the world. From the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix to the Red Bull Air Race in the United Kingdom to the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Jordan, the brand's powerful event marketing strategy takes them here, there, and everywhere.

Aside from events, Red Bull's packaging also plays a part in its global appeal.

"Red Bull really looks like a product from a global economy. It doesn't look like a traditional American soft drink -- it's not in a 12-ounce can, it's not sold in a bottle, and it doesn't have script lettering like Pepsi or Coke. It looks European. That matters," explains Harvard Business School professor Nancy F. Koehn in a 2001 article. Though it's since diversified its product selection since that article was published, the fact remains that Red Bull's consistent packaging has helped this brand go global.

Airbnb, a community marketplace for people to list and book accommodations around the world, was founded in 2008 out of San Francisco, California.

Since then, Airbnb has grown to 1,500,000+ listings in 34,000+ cities worldwide. A large contributor to the company's explosive global success? Social media.

In January 2015, Airbnb launched a social media campaign around the hashtag #OneLessStranger. The company referred to the campaign as a "global, social experiment," in which Airbnb asked the community to perform random acts of hospitality for strangers, and then take a video or photo with the person and share it using the hashtag.

Just three weeks after the launch of the campaign, over 3,000,000 people worldwide engaged, created content, or were talking about the campaign.

3) Dunkin Donuts

4) Domino's

Similar to Dunkin Donuts, Domino's has prioritized menu innovation as a means of increasing international interest and awareness.

"The joy of pizza is that bread, sauce, and cheese works fundamentally everywhere, except maybe China, where dairy wasn't a big part of their diet until lately," explains Domino's CEO J. Patrick Doyle.

"And it's easy to just change toppings market to market. In Asia, it's seafood and fish. It's curry in India. But half the toppings are standard offerings around the world."

By making a conscious effort to gain a better understanding of the preferences of the markets it's trying to break into, Domino's is able to deliver pies diverse enough to gain international attention.

5) Rezdy

Some companies may not be trying to attract global markets directly, but if their clients are, they better know how. Rezdy is an Australian-based reservation software designed to make online booking smoother for tourists and agents alike.

Though Rezdy's clients are Australian-based, the company needs to cater to its clients' international visitors. Click on the screen shot to check out this fun video on Rezdy's homepage:

The first feature the video spotlights is 'Internationalisation.' The video walks us through how easy the service is for users, but is sure to emphasize the language and currency customization tool upfront. Even if your company is marketing to other regional companies, consider their global customers as if they were your own.

6) World Wildlife Foundation

WWF took its Earth Hour initiative -- a voluntary worldwide event where participants turn off their lights for an hour to show how easy it can be to battle climate change -- and brought it to Norway's mobile audience.

Scandinavian countries like Norway experience extreme daylight hours in different seasons, making the country a prime candidate for WWF's Blackout campaign. Using digital agency Mobiento, the nonprofit placed the Blackout Banner across Norway's top media sites to promote Earth Hour. With one tap of the banner, the screen went black. Finger swiping the black screen slowly revealed the Earth Hour countdown. The banner attracted roughly 1,000,000 impressions and the campaign received three MMA Global Mobile Marketing Awards back in 2012.

Have a cool idea? Don't be afraid to try it out on one international market -- just make sure it's the appropriate audience. (Also, don't be afraid of the dark.)

7) Pearse Trust

With offices in Dublin, London, Vancouver, Atlanta, and Wellington, Pearse Trust has grown to be an international authority on corporate and trust structures. But it takes more than offices all over the map to reach an international audience.

That's why Pearse Trust keeps content flowing on its Facebook page that engages its various markets. In this screenshot below, you can see Pearse Trust posts lots of content featuring international affairs relating to the company's practice.

It also levels out external articles with Pearse Trust content, featuring news from places like Germany, Ireland (where it has a Dublin office), and the U.K. (where it has a London office). This is a great example of focusing on common interests shared among your company's various markets while also making the content relatable to customers by region.

8) Nike

Nike has been able to evolve its global presence through the careful selection of international sponsorships such as its previous long-standing relationship with Manchester United.

Although sponsorship spending can be fairly unpredictable -- demand costs tend to surge due to triggers like championships and tournaments -- these partnerships have certainly helped the brand capture the attention of a global audience.

Nike's NikeID co-creation platform serves as another strategy that the company is using to appeal to international markets.

By putting the power of design into the hands of the consumer, Nike is able to deliver customized products that align with different cultural preferences and styles.

9) McDonald's

We all know McDonald's is a successful global brand, so unlike its menu, I'll keep it light.

While keeping its overarching branding consistent, McDonald's practices 'glocal' marketing efforts. No, that's not a typo. McDonald's brings a local flavor, literally, to different countries with region-specific menu items. In 2003, McDonald's introduced the McArabia, a flatbread sandwich, to its restaurants in the Middle East.

McDonald's has also introduced macaroons to its French menu:

And added McSpaghetti to its menu in the Philippines:

10) Innocent Drinks

Innocent Drinks is the leading smoothie company in the U.K., but that's not the only place you'll find its products. In fact, Innocent products are now available in 13 countries across Europe.

And despite its widespread reach, the company's "chatty branding" remains consistent across the board. For instance, the website is very bubbly, with contact information that reads "call the banana phone" or "visit the fruit towers."

While global expansion and rapid growth can sometimes distract a company from consistent branding, Innocent Drinks has managed to remain true to itself. By ensuring that the brand's voice is interpreted the same way around the world, Innocent is able to create a more recognizable brand.

11) Unger and Kowitt

The phrase 'glocal' can be defined as "Think Globally, Act Locally." But what happens when you switch the two around?

Woah, fasten your seat belts -- literally. Unger and Kowitt is a traffic ticket law firm based in Fort Lauderdale defending drivers in the state of Florida. Not very global, right? Well, Unger and Kowitt understands that America is a melting pot and that Florida is bursting at the seams with different cultures and languages.

Though a domestic service, the firm's website is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Creole. With these options, Unger and Kowitt can cater to Florida's nearly 3.5 million Floridians who speak Spanish, Portuguese, or Creole. Don't miss out on expanding your client base -- sometimes you don't have to look far to attract international business.

12) Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a great example of a brand using international marketing efforts. Though a large corporation, Coca-Cola focuses on small community programs and invests a lot of time and money in small-scale charity efforts.

For example, in Egypt, Coca-Cola has built 650 clean water installations in the rural village of Beni Suef and sponsors Ramadan meals for children across the Middle East. In India, the brand sponsors the Support My School initiative to improve facilities at local schools. Not to mention, the brand sticks with selling an emotion that can't get lost in translation: happiness. Now, tell me this doesn't look like fun:

13) H&M

According to Interbrand, H&M is on track to increase new store openings by 10-15% a year. One of the secrets fueling its global expansion strategy?

Optimizing its online experience.

With an online shop available in 21 markets, including the U.S., H&M is doing everything in its power to create an easy-to-navigate, mobile-friendly online shopping experience.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in November 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
What other brands out there do a great job with their international marketing? Let us know in the comment section below.

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13 Businesses With Brilliant Global Marketing Strategies

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Thanks to the internet, global reach is no longer reserved for deep-pocketed brands, nor is it an incredible hassle for already over-burdened marketing managers. In fact, a global presence is possible for any business with a creative strategy and an understanding of world markets.

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Expensive risk for Jeff Bezo, CEO of Amazon

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Ever since announced it was acquiring Whole Foods earlier this week, the pundits have been jumping on the story, each one theorizing about Amazon's motivations for the acquisition.

Some guesses make more sense, in particular, that Amazon wants to expand its grocery business. Others might leave you scratching your head, like the theory that Amazon wants to be more like Wal-Mart Stores.

Upon closer analysis, however, even the more popular theories have weaknesses, leaving us to wonder whether Amazon is essentially taking a $13 billion crap shoot - or making the biggest blunder of CEO Jeff Bezos ' career.
Peeling Back the Layers of the Whole Foods Onion
Our starting point: the official Amazon party line. "Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy," crows Bezos in the official Amazon press release. "Whole Foods Market has been satisfying, delighting and nourishing customers for nearly four decades - they're doing an amazing job and we want that to continue."

Bezos is clearly playing his cards close to the vest here, as he is saying nothing that would indicate why a global ecommerce leader would be interested in a supermarket chain. In fact, this statement appears so baldly disingenuous that one wonders whether a committee of PR wonks actually wrote it, rather than Bezos himself.

Nevertheless, the most likely explanation for the acquisition is that Amazon wishes to expand its grocery business - not simply by adding bricks-and-mortar supermarkets, but by expanding its core ecommerce efforts in this category.

The question then is: why Whole Foods, rather than a more mainstream supermarket chain like or Albertson's? After all, Whole Foods' business model is fundamentally broken in many ways: its 'whole paycheck' prices are too high, its selection is poor, and many of its products are based on quackery, targeting a gullible customer base who believes, for example, homeopathy is something other than pure nonsense.

When you strip away Whole Foods' weaknesses, however, you're left with a small handful of strengths. Perhaps the most appealing of these is the grocer's upscale demographics - especially considering they overlap the audience for the popular Amazon Prime service. "Whole Foods currently records ~8 million weekly customer visits, and has 30 million customers - which we believe overlaps significantly with Amazon's projected 60 million domestic households," according to a report by JP Morgan. "With Whole Foods, Amazon now has 464 stores in markets that we believe have significant overlap with Prime customers as the broader grocery market transitions online at what we believe is likely to be at an accelerating pace."

Why, then, would it be important to Amazon to serve its existing Prime customers at Whole Foods? One likely answer: an omnichannel combination of online and in-store goods, where customers can come into their local Whole Foods and pick up their entire Amazon order - food, books, and everything else at once.

The synergies with Amazon's technology are clear. "Amazon has an opportunity to give Prime members automatic entry in a new Whole Foods benefits program," says Brent Franson, CEO of retail analytics firm Euclid Analytics. "They could also offer the option to pay for groceries using the Amazon app, or sync your Alexa-made grocery list with your app while in-store."

Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter, takes the omnichannel story one step further. "We will see a renaissance in physical space and a new paradigm for online shopping that merges intelligent technologies, hyper-personalization, and seamless cross-channel engagement," Solis says.

Perhaps - but Solis' notion of hyper-personalization, what we call individualization at Intellyx, may be central to Amazon's customer experience strategy generally, but it's not clear how it would translate to a Whole Foods store. After all, every logged in user sees an individualized web page when they go to Amazon's web site, but everyone who walks through the door of Whole Foods sees much the same thing as everyone else.
Is it about Home Delivery?
Since Walmart is rolling out its own order online/pick up in store service, perhaps Amazon is looking to do the same. For most Amazon customers, however, home delivery is the preferred method of receiving merchandise.

Perhaps the Whole Foods acquisition is about home delivery? "Consumers are becoming accustomed to getting pretty much anything they want delivered right to their door today, just by clicking 'Confirm and Pay,' " says Roger Beahm, WestRock executive director of the Wake Forest University Center for Retail Innovation. "Having perfected this buying behavior in categories such as books and apparel, it's not hard to visualize consumers getting to a similar tipping point in retail grocery once the logistics are there."

Whole Foods has already been experimenting with home delivery, so it might make sense for Amazon to see its stores as mini-warehouses that can support such a service.

In fact, Amazon has also been exploring a similar distributed fulfillment model. "It's usually no more scientific than here's where our fulfillment center is, let's start with the zip codes right around, and just keep extending that," according to Amazon SVP of North American retail Doug Herrington.
Is it about the Supply Chain?
While some of the pundits focus on the customer experience, most of them consider the grocery supply chain to be at the heart of Amazon's strategy for buying Whole Foods. Unfortunately, they can't agree on why.

Perhaps Whole Foods brings supply chain capabilities to Amazon that it has struggled to implement for itself? The focus of this line of reasoning is on the cold chain: the supply chain for perishables like produce, fresh fish, and dairy products.

It's true that the cold chain has been a challenge for Amazon up to this point (as the screenshot illustrates), but the question remains whether Whole Foods' supply chain can address its problems.

As with most supermarkets, the cold chain consists of numerous small vendors who are frequently local - one might deliver fish while another transports tomatoes and a third brings milk.

Perhaps Amazon is interested in the Whole Foods supply chain only to reinvent it - but then, why pay so much for something broken you only have to fix? "Amazon.com Inc.'s nearly $14 billion bid for Whole Foods is about more than just acquiring a means to sell high-end food products online. It's about busting the supply chain in an ancient business," opines author and fellow Forbes contributor John F. Wasik. "Amazon, with its massive regional distribution centers that are often larger than shopping malls, could cut out most wholesalers."

The Whole Foods supply chain, however, is far from monolithic. It sources many of its perishable and specialty products from a web of suppliers, a business Amazon would likely be able to reinvent - but possibly at the cost of what makes those particular products special for customers.

The rest of Whole Foods products, namely the bulk of its nonrefrigerated packaged goods, it obtains through a traditional natural foods supply chain intermediary, United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI).

True, Amazon could replace UNFI, but it's not clear there would be much business benefit to doing so, as UNFI is already a low-cost partner. "To think that UNFI is somehow fleecing Whole Foods by hundreds of millions of dollars - it really doesn't make a lot of sense," according to Scott Mushkin, managing director at Wolfe Research.

Roger Davidson, president of Oakton Advisory Group and a former executive at Walmart, Wild Oats Markets, and , echoes Mushkin's perspective in the same article. "It would be a mammoth undertaking to create their own supply chain," Davidson says.

Supply chain experts doubt that Amazon would be up to the task of reinventing the Whole Foods supply chain anyway, pointing to the fact that most of the products Amazon sells today come from third-party sellers. "52% of Amazon is not even Amazon, it is FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)," says Jim Tompkins, Chairman and CEO at Tompkins International supply chain consulting. "FBA allows Amazon to double its volume through the economies of scale and get an opportunity for some synergistic collaboration, which allows them to afford a higher level of automation that is economically justified with more local distribution and fulfillment capabilities."

Perhaps by biting off the Whole Foods supply chain, Amazon now has more than it can chew? "The grocery industry is a completely different game when compared to items like books, media and electronics," explains Natan Reddy, a tech industry analyst at CB Insights. "Food delivery services on the whole are considerably more logistically complex."
The Missing Link
Perhaps Amazon's challenge isn't to make Whole Foods' supply chain more like Amazon's, but rather vice-versa - warts and all. After all, there are certain elements of its supply chain that Whole Foods customers value and are willing to pay extra for, in particular, how it handles fresh fish and coffee.

The secret: a transparent supply chain, from producer all the way to the store. "There's a subset of customers-I think it's a pretty big subset-that when you're talking about things that go in or on your body, or in or on your children's bodies, they really care about that supply chain," Bezos says.

This supply chain visibility, however, is only part of the challenge. "Like browsing for books in a store, touching (and then cooking) the food that you put in your body is one of the few exclusively human experiences that we need to preserve," Forbes contributor Wasik continues. "Amazon may change the economics of this process in a profound way, but it will need to pay attention to the sensual dynamic at play."

We thus have two competing stories in play: streamlining the supply chain along modern digital lines to deliver speed and convenience to customers, vs. bringing a high-touch, upscale supply chain to the segment of customers who value such an approach.

Which one Amazon will end up with is anybody's guess - even Amazon's. "Trial and error, and finally you find a success," Bezos says. "And that takes long-term thinking."

In the final analysis, then, it's possible that Amazon is making a strategic error with the Whole Foods acquisition, and it is certainly taking some risks - but for Jeff Bezos and his team, the game isn't a crap shoot. It's a game of chess, and Amazon is thinking three moves ahead.
Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, none of the organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Jason Bloomberg, from Amazon.com.

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Amazon's Whole Foods Strategy: It's Not What You Think

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In the final analysis, it's possible that Amazon is making a strategic error with the Whole Foods acquisition, and it is certainly taking some risks - but for Jeff Bezos and his team, the game isn't a crap shoot. It's a game of chess, and Amazon is thinking three moves ahead.

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Surprised to find that Apple made the list.

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What makes a company "bad"? Is it offering employees low wages for slave labour? Is it forcing employees to work long hours, leaving them with no time for family? Or is it subjecting employees to unsafe working conditions? The answer may possibly involve all three. Factors such as inadequate compensation, unconcern for work/life balance, and poor working conditions can take a company from "bad" to "worst". The companies on this list failed to get the memo on one or more of these factors.

In order to compile a list of twenty of the worst companies to work for, I started by gathering names of companies with less than stellar reputations. A company with a history of underpaying its employees could just as easily land on this list as a company which failed to comply with fire safety regulations. Once I had obtained a large number of guilty companies, I began crafting a top twenty. I used data from Glassdoor and Comparably to rank these companies on three key factors: employee compensation (which includes pay and benefits), work/life balance, and working conditions (which includes work hours and work environment). I then calculated the average ranking of each company across all three factors to determine the order of the top twenty companies.

Without further ado, here's a list of twenty of the worst companies to work for.

Yum! Brands is the best of the worst companies featured on this list. It includes such popular fast food restaurant chains as KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. While the food may be yummy over at Yum! Brands, the wages aren't. Yum! Brands was listed as the second lowest paying company in 24/7 Wall St.'s 2015 special report. It has since improved, earning a score of 3.8/5 for comp and benefits on Glassdoor, and ranking among the top 45% of companies on Comparably in terms of employee compensation. It's score of 55/100 in this domain, however, leaves room for improvement.

It may come as a surprise to find Apple on a list of the worst companies to work for, but there are two major reasons for its inclusion on this list. First, Apple was listed as the fourth most stressful tech company to work for according to a report by PayScale, with 66% of employees citing their job as stressful. Stress can lead to a host of negative health conditions, so more than half of your employees experiencing stress at work isn't a good sign. Second, Apple appeared on MoneyInc's list of five companies boasting the worst working conditions. Specifically, Apple factories reported high suicide rates among workers and forced overtime of up to 200 hours per month. The next time you search for jobs on your iPhone, spare a thought for the Apple employees who might be thinking of jumping out of the nearest window.

No, Foot Locker didn't earn its position on this list for shoving its employees' feet inside of a locker. Don't fool yourself, though; it isn't a perfect company, either. Foot Locker was ranked the ninth worst retail company to work for on Ranker. Perhaps this is because of the long hours that employees must work. Or maybe it's because of the horrendous referee uniforms that employees must wear. Either way, working at Foot Locker isn't an ideal scenario. Its worst scores on Glassdoor are for comp and benefits and senior management, which may be explained by the fact that managers are seen as having favourites. Foot Locker only reports a 48% positive business outlook on Glassdoor, which isn't encouraging. Employees believe that there's little to no room for growth. Other than that, Foot Locker doesn't show signs of any major problems, which is why it's only 18th on this list.

Like its name suggests, Office Depot is an office supply chain, a rival to Staples if you will. It beat out Staples for a spot on this list, but might not want to brag about it. Office Depot was ranked worst retail company to work for on Ranker. This ranking might have something to do with substandard pay and benefits. Office Depot is among the bottom 45% of companies on Comparably when it comes to employee compensation. It reports a worse positive business outlook than Foot Locker (23% on Glassdoor), while only 44% would recommend it to a friend. As expected, its weakest categories on Glassdoor are senior management, comp and benefits, and career opportunities. Interestingly, Office Depot is among the top 5% of companies on Comparably in terms of work environment. Perhaps its positive atmosphere makes up for the low wages.

Papa John's makes pizza and disgruntled employees. The company was announced as the second worst company in America by the Center for Popular Democracy. It was involved in a class-action lawsuit for underpaying its delivery drivers. This ill-advised practice was enough to place Papa John's in the top ten companies offering the worst compensation according to my analysis. Consistent with my findings, Comparably indicates that Papa John's falls in the bottom 35% of companies in terms of employee compensation. It did, however, manage to make the top 10% of companies regarding work environment. At least the delivery drivers were having fun while they were being swindled out of money, right?

Who hasn't been to McDonald's and thought, "They must be making cuts somewhere to sell their food this cheap"? Well, they're cutting back on their employees' wages, that's where. McDonald's made several worst lists, including 24/7 Wall St.'s special report of the lowest paying companies in America, where it placed third. It also made the top twenty worst retail companies to work for on Ranker. This isn't shocking when you consider McDonald's reputation for offering low wages, assigning inconsistent work schedules, skimping on employee benefits, and making employees work unpredictable hours. Employees' biggest complaints about McDonald's, however, typically involve low wages. The restaurant chain is among the bottom 35% of companies on Comparably when it comes to employee compensation, and among the top ten companies on this list offering employees the worst compensation. The next time that you find yourself ordering a Big Mac, think about leaving a generous tip.

Tyson Foods made this list for one major reason: its horrific working conditions. Along with Apple, Tyson Foods made MoneyInc's list of five companies with the worst working conditions in America. At Tyson Foods, workers wear adult diapers because they're denied bathroom breaks. They slash each other with knives and sharp tools because they're packed in like sardines on the assembly line. Doesn't this sound like an appealing job? It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. Predictably, Tyson Foods made the top five companies with the worst working conditions in my analysis. It also made the bottom 35% of companies on Comparably with regards to work environment. Employees of Tyson Foods have it easy, though, compared to the Tyson chickens who were scalded alive.

TJX Companies operates T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Sierra Trading Post, Winners, and HomeSense, among other retailers. Its products are tasteful, but its work practices are not. According to 24/7 Wall St.'s special report, TJX Companies is the seventh lowest paying company in America. Three of its retailers (HomeGoods, T.J. Maxx, and Marshalls) made the top 20 worst retail companies to work for on Ranker. Worse, TJX Companies is among the bottom 5% of companies on Comparably in terms of employee compensation. It's also among the top five companies offering the worst compensation in my analysis. You may want to retrieve the resume that you just submitted to T.J. Maxx.

Walmart made this list for being 24/7 Wall St.'s lowest paying company in America. It's also one of five companies with the worst working conditions according to MoneyInc, along with Apple and Tyson Foods. In 2013, one in six Walmart clothing factories in Bangladesh failed to meet safety standards, one factory even collapsing because of this. Looks like Walmart's low prices come at the cost of several human lives. Walmart then refused to sign a pact to improve factory conditions, which is shady to say the least. Walmart likewise made Ranker's list of worst retail companies to work for, coming in at number two. It made two top ten lists in my analysis: worst working conditions and worst work/life balance. Walmart may want to roll back on the negative work factors a tad.

Walgreens is a pharmacy chain that may want to get a prescription for how to treat its employees fairly. The Center for Popular Democracy named Walgreens the worst company in America, based on thousands of votes. Walgreens has been accused of promoting employees to salaried positions to avoid overtime pay, resulting in employees earning less per hour than their hourly coworkers. Unsurprisingly, this company is among the bottom 25% of companies on Comparably in terms of employee compensation. Walgreens made the top ten companies with the worst working conditions in my analysis, but, interestingly enough, just missed the top ten in the compensation category. It ended up at number eleven, much like its position on this list; foreshadowing, perhaps?

Keeping with the theme of undesirable pharmacies, Express Scripts is a pharmacy benefit management company (the largest in the United States), as well as a Fortune 100 company. It was the second worst company on 24/7 Wall St.'s list of worst companies in 2016. It's among the bottom 35% of companies with regards to work environment on Comparably. Express Scripts made the top five companies with the worst working conditions, and the top ten companies with the worst work/life balance in my analysis. Long hours are a common complaint, with many employees working 10-hour days. Those hours will definitely skew work/life balance in favour of work.

Perhaps having "mart" in your company name isn't such a good idea if you want your company to make a "best" list. 24/7 Wall St. listed Kmart as the sixth worst company in 2016. It is the fifth worst retailer to work for according to Ranker. It's among the bottom 5% of companies on Comparably in terms of employee compensation. Kmart came out as the company offering the worst compensation in this analysis. Sears Holdings Corporation, which owns Kmart, was listed as the eighth lowest paying company by 24/7 Wall St. in 2015. Low pay and long hours are two common complaints from Kmart employees.

Everybody has consumed a Kraft Heinz product in their lifetime. Whether it's Heinz ketchup squirted over a juicy burger, or a Jello-O shot at a college party, Kraft Heinz has satisfied consumers' cravings for years. Whether it's satisfied its employees is another matter. Kraft Heinz Company was rated the tenth worst company by 24/7 Wall St. in 2016. It's among the bottom 5% of companies on Comparably for employee compensation. With regards to the current analysis, Kraft Heinz made the top three companies with the worst working conditions, and emerged as the company reporting the worst work/life balance. Heinz ketchup suddenly acquired a sour taste.

Forever 21's clothes might look cheap, but nothing's cheaper than the company's work practices. Forever 21 was rated the worst company in America by 24/7 Wall St. in 2016. It's ranked the 15th worst retail company to work for on Ranker. According to Comparably, it's among the bottom 25% of companies in terms of work environment. Forever 21 made the top five companies with the worst work/life balance, and the top three companies with the worst working conditions in my analysis. The company is infamous for forcing employees to work overtime without pay (sometimes as late as 2 A.M.), and for detaining employees during lunch breaks or after shifts to search their bags for stolen merchandise. Talk about trust issues.

Family Dollar was rated the third worst company by 24/7 Wall St. in 2016. It was listed as one of five companies touting the worst working conditions according to MoneyInc, in part due to employees having to sleep at stores overnight and being refused medical attention during work hours. It's among the bottom 35% of companies on Comparably with regards to employee compensation, using the Walgreens strategy of promoting employees to salaried positions to avoid paying overtime. Family Dollar made the top ten companies with the worst working conditions and the worst compensation, as well as the being the company with the second worst work/life balance in my analysis. It can be hard to imagine a company with the word "dollar" in its name paying its employees anything more.

Dillard's isn't a restaurant that specializes in pickles; it's a department store in the United States. It came out as the ninth worst company in 2016 according to 24/7 Wall St., but has since worsened. It's among the bottom 5% of companies on Comparably in terms of employee compensation, with only 10/100 employees believing they're paid fairly. Dillard's is certainly in a pickle (okay, that's my last pickle joke). Dillard's emerged as the company with the third worst work/life balance, and placed among the top ten companies with the worst working conditions and the worst compensation in my analysis. Employees believe that Dillard's has unrealistic sales quotas. Perhaps they have unrealistic ideas of how a company should run, as well.

Some people subscribe to Bell; others subscribe to DISH. If you haven't guessed it already, DISH is an American satellite television and internet provider. The company was listed as the seventh worst company in America by 24/7 Wall St. in 2016. It just cracked the top 20 worst retail companies to work for on Ranker. According to Comparably, it's among the bottom 45% of companies in terms of employee compensation, and among the bottom 30% in terms of work environment. DISH made two top five lists in my analysis: worst working conditions, and worst work/life balance (tying for third place with Dillard's). DISH is perhaps best known for its poor customer relations. Can you blame them when their employees are miserable?

Xerox is one of those names you've heard before, but don't quite know what it means. In a nutshell, Xerox is a document technology company. What is a document technology company, you ask? Well, it sells printers and photocopiers, among other things. What Xerox doesn't sell, however, is a positive work experience. The company was listed as the fifth worst company in 2016 by 24/7 Wall St. According to Comparably, it's among the bottom 10% of companies in terms of both employee compensation and work environment. Yikes. Xerox made the top ten companies with the worst work/life balance and the worst compensation in my analysis, as well as being the company boasting the worst working conditions. Might I print out a few suggestions for improving your work experience, Xerox?

RadioShack may have filed for bankruptcy several times, but it still has enough stores open to make this list. RadioShack emerged as the eighth worst company on 24/7 Wall St.'s list of worst companies in 2016. It's also the eighth worst retailer to work for on Ranker. According to Comparably, it's among the bottom 45% of companies in terms of work environment, and among the bottom 5% of companies in terms of employee compensation. RadioShack made the top ten companies with the worst work/life balance and the worst working conditions, and emerged as the company offering the second worst compensation in my analysis. It might not be such a bad thing if RadioShack goes out of business.

Truth be told, I've never felt comfortable being inside of a Sears store. Maybe it's the general clutter pervading the aisles, or maybe it's a sixth sense that the company isn't a shining example of good business practices. Sears is cited as the fourth worst and the eighth lowest paying company in America by 24/7 Wall St. MoneyInc lists Sears as one of five companies with the worst working conditions, while Ranker lists Sears as the sixth worst retail company to work for. It's only more bad news from there. According to Comparably, Sears is among the bottom 20% of companies with regards to work environment, and among the bottom 5% in terms of employee compensation. In my analysis, Sears is among the top ten companies with the worst work/life balance, the top five companies offering the worst compensation, and is the company with the second worst working conditions. I don't feel so bad about disliking Sears anymore.

Sources: forbes.com, 247wallst.com, populardemocracy.org

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The 20 Worst Companies In The World To Work For

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What makes a company "bad"? Is it offering employees low wages for slave labour? Is it forcing employees to work long hours, leaving them with no time for family? Or is it subjecting employees to unsafe working conditions? The answer may possibly involve all three.

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Keep in mind that the way you recruit directly relates to your brand as a company

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19 Recruiting Strategies to Make Hiring Work For You In 2017

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Blast your startup into orbit by building an awesome team with our recruiting strategy tips and advice from hiring experts and seasoned business professionals.

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Leadership skills are crucial to management

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Leadership skills are crucial to management

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Anyone within an organization has the potential to become a leader, but managers must be leaders. In schools and in our organizations we have been taught and conditioned to believe that managers and leaders are two separate people which is quite a harmful assumption. As a result we have managers who cannot lead and leaders who cannot manage. A leader who cannot manage has a vision of where they want to go but no idea of how to get there. A manager who cannot lead is not able to build trust and create engagement within an organization to get to where they need to go. Neither of these scenarios are practical or effective.

Management and managers are human inventions that were designed with a single purpose in mind, to enforce controls and protocols. The role of a manager was to make sure that employees showed up on time, did their jobs, didn't cause any problems, and showed up the next day to repeat the process. There was no emphasis on creativity, innovation, engagement, empowerment, or the like; nor was there a need for any of these things. However today we live and work in a very different world where all of these things are essential. This means that managers must be leaders. I believe we have reached an important tipping point which is forcing us to rethink managers and management altogether

I have been exploring this in a series of posts which you can find here (with much more on the way):

The stereotypical manager focuses on control, delegation, productivity, the bottom line, process, and efficiency. The leader focuses on vision, engagement, big ideas, empowerment, innovation, and transformation. One without the other is meaningless. Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs are of course considered to be great leaders in the world of business, but do you think that they didn't know how to build a team, look at the bottom line, execute strategies, and improve productivity? Of course they did. We don't need to look to the likes of Bezos or Jobs, any manager regardless of how junior or senior needs to be able to come up with big ideas, inspire employees, take on a certain degree of risk, or engage team members. We spend a lot of time taking people in positions of power and trying to train them to be leaders when we should be finding the leaders inside of our organizations and training them to be managers. The only thing worse than working for a manager that can't lead is missing out on the opportunity to turn our existing leaders into managers. We need to stop assuming that "managers" is a dirty word, if managers must be leaders then they should be looked at with a positive lens.

Greg Schott, the CEO of Mulesoft is a manager that personally interviews every candidate that applies to work there.

Todd Etter, the chief collaboration officer of The Motley Fool is a manager who uses games to inspire and engage his employees.

Lynanne Kunkel, the VP of Global Talent Development at is a manager that recently helped introduce a program across the company that instills the values of leadership and innovation across all employees.

Bob Chapman, the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, is a manager who measures "heart count" at his company to look at how engaged and happy the employees are.

Scott Abel, the CEO of Spiceworks, is a manager who has something called "slices with Scott" where he orders pizzas for the whole company who then get to spend hours asking Scott any questions they want whether it be "what's our company strategy going forward" to "how come you don't have kids?"

We can no longer afford to segment and separate managers and leaders, this does nothing but hurt our organizations. If you want to formally be placed in a position of "power" where you help drive your organization forward then the pre-requisite for this is that you must be a leader. That is, you have earned followers, you have built trust among your co-workers, and you are able to think big and inspire others. But if you are not a leader at your organization than you should also not be a manager.

Management and leadership need to be taught in schools as interconnected disciplines that cannot exist without the other. Leaders within organizations should be mentored so that they know how to properly manage. We must stop referring to leaders and managers as two separate people. And perhaps most importantly, we need to give leaders at our organizations the opportunity to be officially recognized as managers. Only then will we be able to create organizations where employees are engaged, organizations that are able to attract and retain top talent, and organizations that are capable of surviving and thriving in a rapidly changing world.

Wouldn't you want to work for an organization where all the managers are leaders? Wouldn't you want to be that kind of a manager?
Jacob Morgan is a futurist, author, and speaker. You can get the first 30 pages of his book for free as well as weekly content on the future of work by subscribing to his newsletter.

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Anyone within an organization has the potential to become a leader, but managers must be leaders. In schools and in our organizations we have been taught and conditioned to believe that managers and leaders are two separate people which is quite a harmful assumption. As a result we have managers [...]

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Lengthy article from 1970. This covers so many topics from our course I feel like if I would have read this in module 1 I would be way in over my head but after 8 quick weeks of information overload I am able to grasp concepts and understand the deeper meaning behind it all.

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There are few business activities more prone to a credibility gap than the way in which executives approach organizational life. A sense of disbelief occurs when managers purport to make decisions in rationalistic terms while most observers and participants know that personalities and politics play a significant if not an overriding role. Where does the error lie? In the theory which insists that decisions should be rationalistic and nonpersonal? Or in the practice which treats business organizations as political structures?

Whatever else organizations may be (problem-solving instruments, sociotechnical systems, reward systems, and so on), they are political structures. This means that organizations operate by distributing authority and setting a stage for the exercise of power. It is no wonder, therefore, that individuals who are highly motivated to secure and use power find a familiar and hospitable environment in business.

At the same time, executives are reluctant to acknowledge the place of power both in individual motivation and in organizational relationships. Somehow, power and politics are dirty words. And in linking these words to the play of personalities in organizations, some managers withdraw into the safety of organizational logics.

As I shall suggest in this article, frank recognition of the importance of personality factors and a sensitive use of the strengths and limitations of people in decisions on power distributions can improve the quality of organizational life.

Political Pyramid

Organizations provide a power base for individuals. From a purely economic standpoint, organizations exist to create a surplus of income over costs by meeting needs in the marketplace. But organizations also are political structures which provide opportunities for people to develop careers and therefore provide platforms for the expression of individual interests and motives. The development of careers, particularly at high managerial and professional levels, depends on accumulation of power as the vehicle for transforming individual interests into activities which influence other people.

Scarcity & competition

A political pyramid exists when people compete for power in an economy of scarcity. In other words, people cannot get the power they want just for the asking. Instead, they have to enter into the decisions on how to distribute authority in a particular formal organization structure. Scarcity of power arises under two sets of conditions:

1. Where individuals gain power in absolute terms at someone else's expense.

2. Where there is a gain comparatively-not literally at someone else's expense-resulting in a relative shift in the distribution of power.

In either case, the psychology of scarcity and comparison takes over. The human being tends to make comparisons as a basis for his sense of self-esteem. He may compare himself with other people and decide that his absolute loss or the shift in proportional shares of authority reflects an attrition in his power base. He may also compare his position relative to others against a personal standard and feel a sense of loss. This tendency to compare is deeply ingrained in people, especially since they experience early in life the effects of comparisons in the family where-in an absolute sense-time and attention, if not love and affection, go to the most dependent member.

Corporate acquisitions and mergers illustrate the effects of both types of comparisons. In the case of one merger, the president of the acquired company resigned rather than accept the relative displacement in rank which occurred when he no longer could act as a chief executive officer. Two vice presidents vied for the position of executive vice president. Because of their conflicting ambitions, the expedient of making them equals drove the competition underground, but not for long. The vice president with the weaker power base soon resigned in the face of his inability to consolidate a workable definition of his responsibilities. His departure resulted in increased power for the remaining vice president and the gradual eliminnation of "rival camps" which had been covertly identified with the main contenders for power.

The fact that organizations are pyramids produces a scarcity of positions the higher one moves in the hierarchy. This scarcity, coupled with inequalities, certainly needs to be recognized. While it may be humane and socially desirable to say that people are different rather than unequal in their potential, nevertheless executive talent is in short supply. The end result should be to move the more able people into the top positions and to accord them the pay, responsibility, and authority to match their potential.

On the other side, the strong desires of equally able people for the few top positions available means that someone will either have to face the realization of unfulfilled ambition or have to shift his interest to another organization. ¹

Constituents & clients

Besides the conditions of scarcity and competition, politics in organizations grows out of the existence of constituencies. A superior may be content himself with shifts in the allocation of resources and consequently power, but he represents subordinates who, for their own reasons, may be unhappy with the changes. These subordinates affirm and support their boss. They can also withdraw affirmation and support, and consequently isolate the superior with all the painful consequences this entails.

While appointments to positions come from above, affirmation of position comes from below. The only difference between party and organizational politics is in the subtlety of the voting procedure. Consider:

In a large consumer products corporation, one division received almost no capital funds for expansion while another division, which had developed a new marketing approach for products common to both, expanded dramatically. The head of the static division found his power diminished considerably, as reflected in how seriously his subordinates took his efforts at influence (e.g., in programs to increase the profit return from existing volume).

He initiated one program after another with little support from subordinates because he could not make a claim for capital funds. The flow of capital funds in this corporation provided a measure of power gains and losses in both an absolute and a relative sense.

Power & action

Still another factor which heightens the competition for power that is characteristic of all political structures is the incessant need to use whatever power one possesses. Corporations have an implicit "banking" system in power transactions. The initial "capitalization" which makes up an individual's power base consists of three elements:

1. The quantity of formal authority vested in his position relative to other positions.

2. The authority vested in his expertise and reputation for competence (a factor weighted by how important the expertise is for the growth areas of the corporation as against the historically stable areas of its business).

3. The attractiveness of his personality to others (a combination of respect for him as well as liking, although these two sources of attraction are often in conflict).

This capitalization of power reflects the total esteem with which others regard the individual. By a process which is still not too clear, the individual internalizes all of the sources of power capital in a manner parallel to the way he develops a sense of self-esteem. The individual knows he has power, assesses it realistically, and is willing to risk his personal esteem to influence others.

A critical element here is the risk in the uses of power. The individual must perform and get results. If he fails to do either, an attrition occurs in his power base in direct proportion to the doubts other people entertained in their earlier appraisals of him.

What occurs here is an erosion of confidence which ultimately leads the individual to doubt himself and undermines the psychological work which led him in the first place to internalize authority as a prelude to action. (While, as I have suggested, the psychological work that an individual goes through to consolidate his esteem capital is a crucial aspect of power relations, I shall have to reserve careful examination of this problem until a later date. The objective now is to examine from a political framework the problems of organizational life.)

What distinguishes alterations in the authority structure from other types of organizational change is their direct confrontation with the political character of corporate life. Such confrontations are real manipulations of power as compared with the indirect approaches which play on ideologies and attitudes. In the first case, the potency and reality of shifts in authority have an instantaneous effect on what people do, how they interact, and how they think about themselves. In the second case, the shifts in attitude are often based on the willingness of people to respond the way authority figures want them to; ordinarily, however, these shifts in attitude are but temporary expressions of compliance.

One of the most common errors executives make is to confuse compliance with commitment. Compliance is an attitude of acceptance when a directive from an authority figure asks for a change in an individual' position, activities, or ideas. The individual complies or "goes along" usually because he is indifferent to the scope of the directive and the changes it proposes. If compliance occurs out of indifference, then one can predict little difficulty in translating the intent of directives into actual implementation. ²

Commitment, on the other hand, represents a strong motivation on the part of an individual to adopt or resist the intent of a directive. If the individual commits himself to a change, then he will use his ingenuity to interpret and implement the change in such a way as to assure its success. If he decides to fight or block the change, the individual may act as if he complies but reserve other times and places to negate the effects of directives. For example:

In one large company, the top management met regularly for purposes of organizational planning. The executives responsible for implementing planning decisions could usually be counted on to carry them out when they had fought hard and openly in the course of reaching such decisions. When they seemed to accept a decision, giving all signs of compliance, the decision usually ended up as a notation in the minutes. Surface compliance occurred most frequently when problems involved loyalties to subordinates.

In one instance, a division head agreed to accept a highly regarded executive from another division to meet a serious manpower shortage in his organization. When the time came to effect the transfer, however, this division general manager refused, with some justification, on the grounds that bringing someone in from outside would demoralize his staff. He used compliance initially to respond to the problem of "family" loyalties to which he felt committed. Needless to say, the existence of these loyalties was the major problem to be faced in carrying out organizational planning.

Compliance as a tactic to avoid changes and commitment as an expression of strong motivation in dealing with organizational problems are in turn related to how individuals define their interests. In the power relations among executives, the so-called areas of common interest are usually reserved for the banalities of human relationships. The more significant areas of attention usually force conflicts of interest, especially competition for power, to the surface.

Interest Conflicts

Organizations demand, on the one hand, cooperative endeavor and commitment to common purposes. The realities of experience in organizations, on the other hand, show that conflicts of interest exist among people who ultimately share a common fate and are supposed to work together. What makes business more political and less ideological and rationalistic is the overriding importance of conflicts of interest.

If an individual (or group) is told that his job scope is reduced in either absolute or proportional terms for the good of the corporation, he faces a conflict. Should he acquiesce for the idea of common good or fight in the service of his self-interest? Any rational man will fight (how constructively depends on the absence of neurotic conflicts and on ego strength). His willingness to fight increases as he comes to realize the intangible nature of what people think is good for the organization. And, in point of fact, his willingness may serve the interests of corporate purpose by highlighting issues and stimulating careful thinking before the reaching of final decisions.

Secondary effects

Conflicts of interest in the competition for resources are easily recognized, as for example, in capital budgeting or in allocating money for research and development. But these conflicts can be subjected to bargaining procedures which all parties to the competition validate by their participation.

The secondary effects of bargaining do involve organizational and power issues. However, the fact that these power issues follow debate on economic problems rather than lead it creates a manifest content which can be objectified much more readily than in areas where the primary considerations are the distributions of authority.

In such cases, which include developing a new formal organization structure, management succession, promotions, corporate mergers, and entry of new executives, the conflicts of interest are severe and direct simply because there are no objective measures of right or wrong courses of action. The critical question which has to be answered in specific actions is: Who gets power and position? This involves particular people with their strengths and weaknesses and a specific historical context in which actions are understood in symbolic as well as rational terms. To illustrate:

A large corporation, General Motors in fact, inadvertently confirmed what every seasoned executive knows: that coalitions of power to overcome feelings of rivalry and the play of personal ambitions are fragile solutions. The appointment of Edward Cole to the presidency followed by Semon Knudsen's resignation shattered the illusion that the rational processes in business stand apart or even dominate the human emotions and ties that bind men to one another. If any corporation prides itself on rationality, General Motors is it. To have to experience so publicly the inference that major corporate life, particularly at the executive levels, is not so rational after all, can be damaging to the sense of security people get from belief in an idea as it is embodied in a corporate image.

The fact that Knudsen subsequently was discharged from the presidency of Ford (an event I shall discuss later in this article) suggests that personalities and the politics of corporations are less aberrations and more conditions of life in large organizations.

But just as General Motors wants to maintain an image, many executives prefer to ignore what this illustration suggests: that organizations are political structures which feed on the psychology of comparison. To know something about the psychology of comparison takes us into the theory of self-esteem in both its conscious manifestations and its unconscious origins. Besides possibly enlightening us in general and giving a more realistic picture of people and organizations, there are some practical benefits in such knowledge. These benefits include:

Increased freedom to act more directly; instead of trying to "get around" a problem, one can meet it.

Greater objectivity about people's strengths and limitations, and, therefore, the ability to use them more honestly as well as effectively.

More effective planning in organizational design and in distribution of authority; instead of searching for the "one best solution" in organization structure, one accepts a range of alternatives and then gives priority to the personal or emotional concerns that inhibit action.

Power Relations

Organizational life within a political frame is a series of contradictions. It is an exercise in rationality, but its energy comes from the ideas in the minds of power figures the content of which, as well as their origins, are only dimly perceived. It deals with sources of authority and their distribution; yet it depends in the first place on the existence of a balance of power in the hands of an individual who initiates actions and gets results. It has many rituals associated with it, such as participation, democratization, and the sharing of power; yet the real outcome is the consolidation of power around a central figure to whom other individuals make emotional attachments.

Faulty coalitions

The formal organization structure implements a coalition among key executives. The forms differ, and the psychological significance of various coalitions also differs. But no organization can function without a consolidation of power in the relationship of a central figure with his select group. The coalition need not exist between the chief executive and his immediate subordinates or staff. It may indeed bypass the second level as in the case of Presidents of the United States who do not build confident relationships within their cabinets, but instead rely on members of the executive staff or on selected individuals outside the formal apparatus.

The failure to establish a coalition within the executive structure of an organization can result in severe problems, such as paralysis in the form of inability to make decisions and to evaluate performance, and in-fighting and overt rivalry within the executive group.

When a coalition fails to develop, the first place to look for causes is the chief executive and his problems in creating confident relationships. The causes are many and complex, but they usually hinge around the nature of the chief executive's defenses and what he needs to avoid as a means of alleviating stress. For example:

The "palace revolt," which led to Semon Knudsen's departure from Ford Motor Company, is an illustration of the failure in the formation of a coalition. While it is true that Henry Ford II named Knudsen president of the company, Knudsen's ultimate power as a newcomer to an established power structure depended on forming an alliance. The particular individual with whom an alliance seemed crucial was Lee Iacocca. For some reason, Knudsen and Iacocca competed for power and influence instead of using cooperatively a power base to which both contributed as is the case with most workable coalitions. In the absence of a coalition, the alternate postures of rivalry and battle for control erupted. Ford ultimately responded by weighing his power with one side over the other.

As I have indicated, it is not at all clear why in Knudsen's case the coalition failed to develop. But in any failure the place to look is in the personalities of the main actors and in the nature of their defenses which make certain coalitions improbable no matter how strongly other realities indicate their necessity.

But defensiveness on the part of a chief executive can also result in building an unrealistic and unworkable coalition, with the self-enforced isolation which is its consequence. One of the most frequently encountered defensive maneuvers which leads to the formation of unrealistic coalitions or to the isolation of the chief executive is the fear of rivalry.

A realistic coalition matches formal authority and competence with the emotional commitments necessary to establish and maintain the coalition. The fear of rivals on the part of chief executives, or the jealousy on the part of subordinates of the chief executive's power, can at the extreme result in paranoid distortions. People become suspicious of one another, and through selective perceptions and projections of their own fantasies create a world of plots and counterplots.

The displacement of personal concerns onto substantive material in decision making is potentially the most dangerous form of defensiveness. The need for defenses arises because people become anxious about the significance of evaluations within existing power coalitions. But perhaps even more basic is the fear and the rivalry to which all coalitions are susceptible given the nature of investments people make in power relations. While it is easy to dismiss emotional reactions like these as neurotic distortions, their prevalence and impact deserve careful attention in all phases of organizational life.

Unconscious collusions

All individuals and consequently groups experience areas of stress which mobilize defenses. The fact that coalitions embody defensive maneuvers on those occasions where stress goes beyond the usual level of tolerance is not surprising. An even more serious problem, however, occurs when the main force that binds men in a structure is the need to defend against or to act out the conflicts which individuals cannot tolerate alone.

Where coalitions represent the aggregation of power with conscious intention of using the abilities of members for constructive purposes, collusions represent predominance of unconscious conflict and defensive behavior. In organizational life, the presence of collusions and their causes often becomes the knot which has to be unraveled before any changes can be implemented.

The collusion of latent interests among executives can become the central theme and sustaining force of an organization structure of top management. For a collusion to take hold, the conflicts of the "power figure" have to be communicated and sensed by others as an overriding need which seeks active expression in the form of a theme. The themes vary just as do the structures which make a collusion. Thus one common theme is the need to control; another is the need to be admired and idealized; and still another is the need to find a scapegoat to attack in response to frustrations in solving problems.

If people could hold on to and keep within themselves areas of personal conflict, there would be far fewer collusions in organizational life. But it is part of the human condition for conflicts and needs to take over life situations. As a result, we find numerous instances of collusions controlling the behavior of executives. To illustrate:

A multidivisional corporation found itself with a revolution on its hands. The president was sensitive to the opinions of a few outside board members representing important stockholder interests. He was so concerned that he would be criticized by these board members, he demanded from vice presidents full information on their activities and complete loyalty to him. Over a period of years, he moved divisional chief executives to corporate headquarters so he could assure himself of their loyalty. Other executives joined in to gratify the president's need for control and loyalty.

The result of this collusion, however, was to create a schism between headquarters and field operations. Some of the staff members in the field managed to inform the board members of the lack of attention to and understanding of field problems. Discontent grew to such an extent that the board placed the president on early retirement.

Subsequently, the new president, with the support of the board, decentralized authority and appointed new division heads who were to make their offices in divisional headquarters with full authority to manage their respective organizations. One of the lingering problems of the new president was to dissolve the collusion at headquarters without wholesale firing of vice presidents.

Just as power distributions are central to the tasks of organizational planning, so the conservation of power is often the underlying function of collusions. Thus:

A manufacturing vice president of a medium-sized company witnessed over a period of 15 years a procession of changes in top management and ownership. He had managed to retain his job because he made himself indispensable in the management of the factory.

To each new top management, he stressed the importance of "home rule" as a means of assuring loyalty and performance in the plant. He also tacitly encouraged each supervisor to go along with whatever cliques happened to form and dominate the shop floor.

However, over time a gradual loss of competitive position, coupled with open conflict among cliques in the form of union disputes, led to the dismissal of the vice president. None of his successors could reassert control over the shop, and the company eventually moved or liquidated many of the operations in this plant.

'Life Dramas'

Faulty coalitions and unconscious collusions, as I have illustrated, can result from the defensive needs of a chief executive. These needs, which often appear as a demand on others to bolster the self-esteem of the chief executive, are tolerated to a remarkable degree and persist for a long time before harmful effects become apparent to outside stockholders, bankers, or boards of directors which ultimately control the distributions of power in organizations. Occasionally, corporations undergo critical conflicts in organizational politics which cannot be ignored in the conscious deliberations which affect how power gets distributed or used.

Intertwined with the various expressions of power conflicts in organizations are three underlying "life dramas" deserving careful attention:

The first portrays stripping the powers of a parental figure.

The second portrays the predominance of paranoid thinking, where distortions of reality result from the surfacing of conflicts which formerly had been contained in collusions.

The third portrays a ritualistic ceremonial in which real power issues are submerged or isolated in compulsive behavior but at the cost of real problem solving and work.

Parental figure

The chief executive in a business, along with the heads of states, religious bodies, and social movements, becomes an object for other people. The term "object" should be understood, in a psychological sense, as a person who is the recipient of strong emotional attachments from others. It is obvious that a chief executive is the object because he controls so many of the levers which ultimately direct the flow of rewards and punishments. But there is something to say beyond this obvious calculation of rewards and punishments as the basis for the emotional attachments between leader and led as object and subject.

Where a leader displays unusual attributes in his intuitive gifts, cultivated abilities, or deeper personal qualities, his fate as the object is governed by powerful emotions. I hesitate to use the word "charismatic" to describe such a leader, partially because it suggests a mystique but also because, in its reference to the "great" man as charismatic leader, it expands to superhuman proportions what really belongs to the psychology of everyday life.

What makes for strong emotional attachments is as much in the need of the subject as in the qualities of the object. In other words, the personalities of leaders take on proportions which meet what subordinates need and even demand. If leaders in fact respond with the special charisma that is often invested in them at the outset, then they are parties to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, the qualities demanded have to be present in some nascent form ready to emerge as soon as the emotional currents become real in authority relationships.

The emotional attachments I am referring to usually contain mixtures of positive and negative feelings. If the current were only of one kind, such as either admiration or hostility, then the authority relationship would be simpler to describe as well as to manage. All too often, the way positive feelings blend into the negative sets off secondary currents of emotion which intensify the relationships.

On the one side, subordinates cannot help but have fantasies of what they would do if they held the No. 1 position. Such fantasies, besides providing fleeting pleasures and helping one to regulate his ambitions, also provide channels for imaginative and constructive approaches to solving problems. It is only a short step from imagining what one would do as chief executive to explaining to the real chief executive the ideas which have been distilled from this flight into fantasy. If the chief executive senses envy in back of the thoughts, he may become frightened and choke off ideas which can be used quite constructively.

Critical episode:

But suppose a situation arises where not one but several subordinates enjoy the same fantasy of being No. 1? Suppose also that subordinates feel deprived in their relationship with the chief executive? Suppose finally that facing the organization there are substantive problems which are more or less out of control. With these three conditions, and depending on the severity of the real problems besetting the enterprise, the stage is set for a collusion which, when acted out, becomes a critical episode of displacing the parental figure. To demonstrate:

In November 1967, the directors of the Interpublic Group, a $700 million complex in advertising and public relations, moved for the resignation of the leader and chief executive officer, Marion Harper, Jr. Briefly, Harper had managed over a period of 18 years to build the world's largest conglomerate in market services, advertising, and information on the base of a personally successful agency career. In expanding from this base, Harper made acquisitions, started new companies, and widened his orbit into international branches and companies.

As often happens, the innovator and creative person is careless in controlling what he has built so that financial problems become evident. In Harper's case, he appeared either unwilling or unable to recognize the seriousness of his financial problems and, in particular, the significance of allowing cash balances to go below the minimum required in agreements with lending institutions.

Harper seemed careless in another, even more telling, way. Instead of developing a strong coalition among his executive group, he relied on individual ties to him in which he clearly dominated the relationship. If any of the executives "crossed" him, Harper would exile the offender to one of the "remote" branches or place him on partial retirement.

When the financial problems became critical, the aggrieved executives who had once been dependent on Harper and then cast out, formed their own coalition, and managed to garner the votes necessary to, in effect, fire the head man. Although little information is available on the aftermath of this palace revolution, the new coalition had its own problems-which, one would reasonably judge, included contentions for power.

A cynic viewing this illustration of the demise of a parental figure could conclude that if one seeks to maintain power by dominance, then one had best go all the way. This means that to take some but not all of the power away from rebellious sons sets the stage for a cabal among the deprived. With a score to settle, they await only the right circumstances to move in and depose the aggressor.

While this cynical view has its own appeal, it ignores the deeper issues of why otherwise brilliant men fail to recognize the realistic needs for coalitions in the relationships of superior and subordinates. To answer this question, we would need to understand how powerful people operate with massive blind spots which limit vision and the ability to maneuver in the face of realistic problems.

The one purpose that coalitions serve is to guard against the effects of blind spots, since it is seldom the case that two people have identical limitations in their vision and ability to respond. The need to control and dominate in a personalistic sense is perhaps the most serious of all possible blind spots which can affect a chief executive, because he makes it difficult for people to help him, while creating grievances which sooner or later lead to attacks on him.

The unseating of a chief executive by a coalition of subordinates seldom reduces the emotional charge built up in the uncertain attachments to the ousted leader. A new head man has to emerge and establish a confident coalition. Until the contentions for power subside and the guilt reactions attached to deposing the leader dissolve, individuals remain vulnerable to their own blind spots and unconscious reactions to striving for power.

The references to a parental figure in the preceding discussion may appear to exaggerate the meaning of power conflicts. In whatever ways it exaggerates, it also condenses a variety of truths about coalitions among executives. The chief executive is the central object in a coalition because he occupies a position analogous to parents in the family. He is at the nucleus of a political structure whose prototype is the family in which jealousy, envy, love, and hate find original impetus and expression.

It would be a gross error to assume that in making an analogy between the family and formal organizations the parental role is strictly paternal. There are also characteristics of the mother figure in certain types of chief executives and combinations of mother-father in the formation of executive coalitions.

Chief executives can also suffer from depersonalization in their roles and as a result become emotionally cold and detached. The causes of depersonalization are complex but, in brief, have some connections to the narrow definitions of rationality which exclude the importance of emotions in guiding communication as well as thought.

For the purpose of interpreting how defensive styles affect the behavior of leaders, there is some truth to the suggestion that the neutrality and lack of warmth characteristic of some leaders is a result of an ingrained fear of becoming the object for other people-for to become the object arouses fears that subordinates will become envious and compete for power.

Paranoid thinking

This is a form of distortion in ideas and perception to which all human beings are susceptible from time to time. For those individuals who are concerned in their work with the consolidation and uses of power, the experience with suspiciousness, the attribution of bad motives to others, jealousy, and anxiety (characteristics of paranoid thinking), may be more than a passing state of mind.

In fact, such ideas and fantasies may indeed be communicated to others and may even be the main force which binds men into collusions. Organizational life is particularly vulnerable to the effects of paranoid thinking because it stimulates comparisons while it evokes anticipations of added power or fears of diminished power.

To complicate matters even more and to suggest just how ambiguous organizational decisions become, there may be some truth and substance in back of the suspicions, distrust, and jealousies which enflame thinking. Personality conflicts do affect decisions in allocating authority and responsibility, and an individual may not be distorting at all to sense that he had been excluded or denied an ambition based on some undercurrents in his relationships with others. To call these sensitivities paranoid thinking may itself be a gross distortion. But no matter how real the events, the paranoid potential is still high as a fallout of organizational life.

Paranoid thinking goes beyond suspiciousness, distrust, and jealousy. It may take the form of grandiose ideas and overestimation of one's power and control. This form of distortion leads to swings in mood from elation to despair, from a sense of omnipotence to helplessness. Again, when acted out, the search for complete control produces the tragedies which the initial distortions attempt to overcome. The tragedy of Jimmy Hoffa is a good case in point. Consider:

From all indications, Hoffa performed brilliantly as president of the teamsters' union. He was a superb organizer and bargainer, and in many ways a highly moral and even prudish man. There is little evidence to support allegations that he used his office to enrich himself.

Hoffa's troubles stemmed from his angry reactions when he could not get his way in managing the union's pension fund and from his relations with the government. In overestimating his power, Hoffa fell victim to the illusion that no controls outside himself could channel his actions. At this writing, Hoffa is serving a sentence in Lewisburg Penitentiary, having been found guilty of tampering with a jury.

It is interesting to note that Hoffa's successor delegated considerable authority to regional officers, a step that removed him from direct comparisons with Hoffa and served to cement a coalition of top officers in the teamsters.

Executives, too, can be victims of their successes just as much as of their failures. If past successes lead to the false sense of omnipotence which goes unchecked in, say, the executive's control of the board of directors, then he and his organization become the victims of changing times and competitive pressures along with the weakening in perception and reasoning which often accompanies aging.

One could speculate with some reason that paranoid distortions are the direct result of senility and the inability to accept the fact of death. While intellectually aware of the inevitability of death, gifted executives can sometimes not accept emotionally the ultimate in the limitations of power. The disintegration of personality in the conflict between the head and the heart is what we come to recognize as the paranoid potential in all forms of our collective relations.

Ritualistic ceremonial

Any collective experience, such as organizational life with its capacity for charging the atmosphere in the imagery of power conflicts, can fall victim to rigidities. The rigidities I have in mind consist mainly of the formation and elaboration of structures, procedures, and other ceremonials which create the illusion of solving problems but in reality only give people something to act on to discharge valuable energies.

The best example of a ritualistic approach to real problems is the ever-ready solution of bringing people together in a committee on the naive grounds that the exchange of ideas is bound to produce a solution. There are even fads and fashions to ritualism as in the sudden appearance of favorite words like "brainstorming" or "synergism."

It is not that bringing people together to discuss problems is bad. Instead, it is the naive faith which accompanies such proposals, ultimately deflecting attention from where it properly belongs. Thus:

In one research organization, professionals faced severe problems arising from personal jealousies as well as differences of opinion on the correct goals and content for the research program. Someone would periodically suggest that the problems could not be solved unless people came together, preferably for a weekend away from the job, to share ideas and really get down to the "nitty-gritty" of the problem. (It is interesting to note that no one ever defines the "nitty-gritty.") The group would indeed follow such suggestions and typically end the weekend with a feeling of euphoria brought on by considerable drinking and a sumptuous meal.

The most concrete proposal for action was in the idea that the basic problem stemmed from the organization's increased size so that people no longer knew one another and their work. The solution which appeared, only shortly to disappear, was to publish a laboratory newsletter that would keep people abreast of their colleagues' newest ideas.

In a more general vein, ritualism can be invoked to deal with any real or fancied danger, with uncertainty, ambivalent attitudes, or a sense of personal helplessness. Rituals are used even in the attempt to manipulate people. That power relations in organizations should become a fertile field for ritualism should not surprise anyone.

As I have tried to indicate, the problems of organizational life involve the dangers associated with losses of power; the uncertainties are legion especially in the recognition that there is no one best way to organize and distribute power, and yet any individual must make a commitment to some form of organization.

Ambivalent attitudes, such as the simultaneous experience of love and hate, are also associated with authority relationships, particularly in how superior-subordinate become the subject and object for the expression of dependency reactions. In addition, the sense of helplessness is particularly sensitized in the events which project gains and losses in power and status.

Finally, superior and subordinate in any power structure are constantly tempted to manipulate each other as a way of gaining control over one's environment, and the more so when there is a lack of confidence and credibility in the organization's efforts to solve problems in realistic ways.

The negative effects of ritualism are precisely in the expenditure of energy to carry out the rituals and also in the childlike expectation that the magic formulas of organizational life substitute for diagnosing and solving real problems. When the heads of organizations are unsure of the bases for the exercise of power and become defensive, the easy solution is to play for time by invoking rituals which may temporarily relieve anxiety.

Similarly, when executives fail to understand the structure and potential of the power coalitions they establish (either consciously or unconsciously), they increasingly rely on rituals to deflect attention away from their responsibilities. And, when leaders are timid men incapable of initiating or responding, the spontaneous reaction is to use people to act out rituals. Usually, the content and symbolism in the rituals provide important clues about the underlying defensiveness of the executive.

Obsessional leaders:

The gravitational pull to ceremonials and magic is irresistible. In positions of power, obsessional leaders use in their public performances the mechanisms of defense which originate in their private conflicts. These defenses include hyper-rationality, the isolation of thought and feeling, reactive behavior in turning anger into moral righteousness, and passive control of other people as well as their own thought processes.

Very frequently, particularly in this day and age of psychologizing conflict, obsessive leaders "get religion" and try to convert others into some new state of mind. The use of sensitivity training with its attachment to "openness" and "leveling" in power relations seems to be the current favorite.

What these leaders do not readily understand is the fallacy of imposing a total solution for the problem of power relations where reality dictates at best the possibility of only partial and transient solutions. To force openness through the use of group pressure in T-groups and to expect to sustain this pressure in everyday life is to be supremely ritualistic. People intelligently resist saying everything they think to other people because they somehow have a deep recognition that this route leads to becoming overextended emotionally and, ultimately, to sadistic relationships.

Intelligent uses of power:

The choice fortunately is not between ritualistic civility and naive openness in human relationships, particularly where power is concerned. In between is the choice of defining those partial problems which can be solved and through which bright people can learn something about the intelligent uses of power.

We should not lose sight of the basic lesson that people in positions of power differ from "ordinary" human beings mainly in their capacity to impose their personal defenses onto the stage of corporate life. Fortunately, the relationships are susceptible to intelligent management, and it is to the nature of this intelligence that I wish to address the conclusion of this article.

Coming Full Circle

The main job of organizational life, whether it concerns developing a new political pyramid, making new appointments to executive positions, or undergoing management succession at top levels, is to bring talented individuals into location for the legitimate uses of power. This is bound to be a highly charged event in corporate relationships because of the real changes in power distributions and the emotional reactions people experience along with the incremental gains and losses of power.

The demand, on the one hand, is for objectivity in assessing people and needs (as opposed to pseudorationality and rationalizing). This objectivity, on the other hand, has to be salvaged from the impact of psychological stresses which impel people to act out fantasies associated with power conflicts. The stresses of change in power relations tend to increase defensiveness to which counterreactions of rationalizing and of myth making serve no enduring purpose except perhaps to drive underground the concerns which make people react defensively in the first place.

Stylistic biases

Thought and action in the politics of organizational life are subject to the two kinds of errors commonly found in practical life: the errors of omission and those of commission. It is both what people do and what they neglect to do that result in the negative effects of action outweighing the positive. But besides the specific errors of omission and commission (the tactical aspects of action), there are also the more strategic aspects which have to be evaluated. The strategic aspects deal both with the corporate aims and objectives and with the style of the leaders who initiate change.

In general, leaders approach change with certain stylistic biases over which they may not have too much control. There is a preferred approach to power problems which derives from the personality of the leader and his defenses as well as from the realities of the situation. Of particular importance as stylistic biases are the preferences for partial, as contrasted with total, approaches and the preferences for substance over form.

Partial vs. total:

The partial approaches attempt to define and segregate problems which become amenable to solution by directive, negotiation, consensus, and compromise.

The total approaches usually escalate the issues in power relations so that implicitly people act as though it were necessary to undergo major conversions. The conversions can be directed toward personality structure, ideals, and beliefs, or toward values which are themselves connected to important aspects of personal experience.

When conversions become the end products of change, then one usually finds the sensitization of concerns over such matters as who dominates and who submits, who controls and who is being controlled, who is accepted and who is rejected. The aftermath of these concerns is the heightening of fantasy and defense at the expense of reality.

It may come as something of a disappointment to readers who are favorably disposed to psychology to consider the possibility that while organizations do have an impact on the attitudes of their constituent members, they cannot change personality structures or carry out therapeutic procedures. People may become more effective while working in certain kinds of organizations, but only when effectiveness is not dependent on the solution of neurotic conflict.

The advocates of total approaches seem to miss this point in their eagerness to convert people and organizations from one set of ideals to another. It becomes a good deal wiser, if these propositions are true, to scale down and make concrete the objectives that one is seeking to achieve.

A good illustration is in the attention given to decentralization of authority. Decentralization can be viewed in the image of conversion to certain ideals about who should have power and how this power should be used responsibly, or through an analytical approach to decide selectively where power is ill-placed and ill-used and to work on change at these locations. In other words, the theory of the partial approach to organizations asserts priorities and depends on good diagnostic observation and thought.

Substance vs. form:

Leaders can also present a stylistic bias in their preference for substance or form. Substance, in the language of organizations, is the detail of goals and performance-that is, who has to do what with whom to meet specific objectives. Form directs attention to the relationship of "who to whom" and attempts to achieve goals by specifying how the people should act in relation to each other.

There is no way in which matters of form can be divorced from substance. But students of organization should at least be clear that attention to form ahead of substance threatens a person's sense of what is reasonable in undertaking actions. Attention to form may also present an implicit attack on one's conception of his independence and freedom from constraint.

Making form secondary to substance has another virtue: it can secure agreement on priorities without the need of predetermining who will have to give way in the ultimate give-and-take of the negotiations that must precede decisions on organization structure.

The two dimensions of bias, shown in the Exhibit I matrix, along with the four cells which result, clarify different executive approaches to power. The two dimensions define the executive's cognitive biases in: (1) selection of goals (partial vs. total), and (2) orientation toward action (form vs. substance).

Exhibit I Cognitive Management Styles in Organizational Life

In the bureaucratic approach-that is, partial goals and attachment to form as a mode of acting-the emphasis is on procedure and the establishment of precedent and rule to control the uses of power.

The appeal of this approach is its promise of certainty in corporate relationships and in the depersonalization of power. The weaknesses of the bureaucratic approach are too familiar to need detailing here. Its major defect, however, is its inability to separate the vital from the trivial. It more easily commands energy over irrelevant issues because the latent function of the bureaucratic approach is to bypass conflict.

My contention here is that few important problems can be attended to without conflict of ideas and interests. Eventually organizations become stagnant because the bureaucratic approaches seldom bring together power and the vital issues which together make organizations dynamic.

The conversion approach (total-form) is notable through the human relations and sensitivity training movements as well as ideological programs, such as the Scanlon Plan and other forms of participative management. The popularity of "management by objectives" bears some scrutiny as a conversion movement directed toward power figures.

Another "total" approach which differs from conversion in its emphasis on substance is compliance with the directives of the powerful leader. This is the arena of the authoritarian personality (in both the leader, who has the power, and in the led, who seek submission), for whom personal power gets expressed in some higher goal that makes it possible for ends to justify means. The ideals may, for example, be race, as with dictator Adolf Hitler, or religion, as with Father Charles Coughlin, a dictator-type of the depression. In business, the illustrations are of a technological variety as with Frederick Winslow Taylor's "scientific management" and Henry Ford's automobile and assembly line.

Almost any technology can assume the proportions of the total approach if it is advanced by a charismatic leader and has deep emotional appeal. This explains the popularity of "management information systems," "value analysis," and "program planning and budgeting" which lead to a belief that the system itself is based on order, rationality, and control; therefore, the belief in turn helps to counteract the fears of chaos and lack of control which make people willing to demand total dependence and compliance in power relations. The effects of this fear on how people seek to arrange power relations in business, government, and the community cannot be overestimated.

Problem-solving approach

It should be perfectly obvious by now that my favored approach to organizational life combines the biases in Exhibit I of the partial substantive quadrant which I have designated "problem solving." From observation of competent business executives, we know it is precisely their ability to define problems worthy of thought and action and to use their organization to evolve solutions which characterize their style.

The contrary notion that executives are primarily caretakers, mediators, and seekers of consensus is more a myth than an accurate portrayal of how the competent ones attach themselves to power. To have power and not direct it to some substantive end that can be attained in the real world is to waste energy. The difficulties with the problem-solving approach are in risking power in favor of a substantive goal.

While there are no absolute right answers in problem solving, there are ways of evaluating the correctness of a program and plan. With a favorable average, the executive finds his power base enhanced and his ability to take risks increased.

The problem-solving approach to organization structure operates according to certain premises:

1. That organization structure is an instrument rather than an end. This means that a structure should be established or modified quickly instead of stringing out deliberations as though there actually exists a best and single solution for the problem of allocating power.

2. That organization structure can be changed but should not be tinkered with. This means that members of an executive organization can rely on a structure and can implement it without the uncertainty which comes from the constant modification of the organization chart.

3. That organization structure expresses the working coalition attached to the chief executive. In other words, the coalition has to be established de facto for the structure to mean anything. If the structure is out of line with the coalition, there will be an erosion of power and effectiveness. If no coalition exists in the minds of participants, putting it on paper in the form of an organization chart is nothing more than an academic exercise and a confusing one at that.

4. That organization structure represents a blend of people and job definitions, but the priority is in describing the structure to accommodate competent people. The reason for this priority lies in the fact that competent executives are hard to find. Therefore, as an action principle, one should ensure the effective uses of the scarcest resources rather than conform to some ideal version of power relations.

5. That organization structure is a product of negotiation and compromise among executives who hold semiautonomous power bases. The more the power base of an executive is his demonstrated competence, the greater his autonomy of power and therefore capacity to determine the outcome in the allocations of power.

The basic criticism of the problem-solving approach is in the danger of defining issues narrowly and ultimately undermining the moral-ethical basis of leadership. This criticism is valid, but as with so many problems in practical affairs, it can be overcome only by leaders who can see beyond the limits of immediate contingencies. In fact, I have tried to show throughout this article how the limitations of leaders, in both their cognitive and their emotional capacities, become the causes of power problems.

We have therefore come full circle in this analysis: because power problems are the effects of personality on structure, the solutions demand thinking which is free from the disabilities of emotional conflicts. This insight is often the margin between enduring with what exists or taking those modest steps which align competence with institutional authority in the service of human needs.

A version of this article appeared in the May 1970 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Power and Politics in Organizational Life

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There are few business activities more prone to a credibility gap than the way in which executives approach organizational life. A sense of disbelief occurs when managers purport to make decisions in rationalistic terms while most observers and participants know that personalities and politics play a significant if not an overriding role.

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Manufacturing jobs are decreasing while output is still growing

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Manufacturing jobs are decreasing while output is still growing

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This relates to Dr Deming's PDCA Cycle

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Manufacturing jobs in the United States have declined considerably over the past several decades, even as manufacturing output - the value of goods and products manufactured in the U.S. - has grown strongly. But while most Americans are aware of the decline in employment, relatively few know about the increase in output, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Four of every five Americans (81%) know that the total number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has decreased over the past three decades, according to the survey of 4,135 adults from Pew Research Center's nationally representative American Trends Panel. But just 35% know that the nation's manufacturing output has risen over the same time span, versus 47% who say output has decreased and 17% who say it's stayed about the same. Only 26% of those surveyed got both questions right.

College graduates are more likely to know that U.S. manufacturing output has increased than are people with less than a bachelor's degree. Still, college graduates are about as likely to say output has increased rather than decreased (43% versus 39%), with the rest saying it's stayed about the same. About half (51%) of people without a four-year college degree say manufacturing output has fallen, versus a third (32%) who say it has risen.

Older people generally are more likely than younger people to believe manufacturing output has fallen. More than half (56%) of 50- to 64-year-olds, and nearly half (49%) of people 65 and older, say that's the case, compared with 39% of 18- to 29-year-olds. Income also appears to be a factor: 42% of people earning $100,000 or more a year say manufacturing output has increased, the highest level of any income bracket, while 55% of those earning between $30,000 and $49,999 a year say output has declined.
What the numbers say
One reason Americans may be more familiar with the long-term decline in manufacturing employment than the increase in output is that the job losses have been highly visible, especially in traditionally manufacturing-intensive areas of the Midwest and South.

Manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 at 19.4 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and by 1987 had fallen to 17.6 million. What had been a slow decline in employment accelerated after the turn of the century, and especially during the Great Recession. Manufacturing payrolls bottomed out at fewer than 11.5 million in early 2010, and even though more than 900,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since, overall employment in manufacturing is still at its lowest level since before the U.S. entered World War II.

As a share of the overall workforce, manufacturing has been dropping steadily ever since the Korean War ended, as other sectors of the U.S. economy have expanded much faster. From nearly a third (32.1%) of the country's total employment in 1953, manufacturing has fallen to 8.5% today.

But that doesn't mean Americans don't make things anymore. Last year, U.S. manufacturers made about $5.4 trillion worth of goods and products (in constant 2009 dollars), according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The biggest categories were food, beverages and tobacco products ($817 billion), chemical products ($752 billion) and motor vehicles and parts ($670 billion).

After adjusting for inflation, manufacturing output in the first quarter of this year was more than 80% above its level 30 years ago, according to BLS data. But while U.S. manufacturing output has increased in absolute terms, it still represents a smaller share of the economy than it used to: Manufacturing accounted for about 23% of gross output in 1997 (the first year for which such data are available) but just 18.5% last year.

Output gains have varied widely among different manufacturing sectors. For example, according to a separate set of industrial production indices maintained by the Federal Reserve Board, computer and electronics production has soared more than 2,600% since 1987, interrupted only briefly by the Great Recession. Production of motor vehicles and parts fell steeply during the recession, but recovered strongly and is now 124% above its 1987 level. The apparel and leather goods sector, by contrast, has been on a long downhill slide: Its production index fell 85% between 1987 and the first half of this year. And while textile production fell sharply (about 52%) in the first decade of the century, it's held mainly steady since then.

It's important to note, however, that nearly all of the growth in manufacturing output over the past three decades occurred before the Great Recession, which had a devastating impact on U.S. manufacturing. After peaking in the first quarter of 2008, the BLS' index of real (that is, inflation-adjusted) manufacturing output plunged 24% over the next year and a half, and only topped its pre-recession peak earlier this year.
More with less
The simultaneous increase in manufacturing output and decline in manufacturing jobs over the long term shows that American manufacturers have become far more productive than they were three decades ago - that is, they can produce more goods, or higher-value goods, with less labor.

The BLS' index of labor productivity for manufacturing is two and a half times higher than it was at the beginning of 1987. This reflects several factors, among them businesses investing more in machinery and replacing old machines with more advanced ones; workers becoming more skilled and educated; and firms streamlining and improving their industrial processes. Economists track productivity growth closely. As Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, commented earlier this year, "it is the most important source of higher income and rising living standards over the long term. It allows us to substantially grow the economic pie, creating larger pieces for everyone."

However, U.S. manufacturing productivity has barely budged since the beginning of 2012 - contributing to what has been some of the lowest overall productivity growth since the end of World War II. Nor is sluggish productivity growth a U.S.-only phenomenon. As a recent IMF report noted, the drop in productivity following the global financial crisis "has been widespread and persistent across advanced, emerging, and low-income countries."

Note: Full methodology, topline and detailed tables are available .

Topics: Work and Employment, National Economy, Emerging Technology Impacts

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Most Americans unaware that as U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared, output has grown

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Manufacturing jobs in the United States have declined considerably over the past several decades, even as manufacturing output - the value of goods and products manufactured in the U.S. - has grown strongly. But while most Americans are aware of the decline in employment, relatively few know about the increase in output, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

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How to implement the Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle

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How to implement the Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle

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PDSA Plan Do Study Act or PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation can be applied to improve an overall business as well as individual projects.

PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation

The four-step process of PDCA is also known as the Deming cycle, Shewhart cycle, or plan-do-study-act (PDSA). Dr. Edwards Deming popularized PDCA, which he later modified to PDSA, since "study" better described his intended action than "check."
Figure 1
PDCA Cycle

As illustrated in Figure 1, PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation steps are:

Plan: Plan a change and its test to determine if a process modification is beneficial.

Do: Implement the change and its test on a small scale.

Check or study: Assess the test results to determine what was learned. Describe what went right, what went wrong, and how well the change worked. A 30,000-foot-level control chart and a hypothesis test can provide a quantitative assessment of how the change impacted the process output.

Act: Determine whether to adopt the change, abandon the change, or repeat the PDCA cycle. A termination decision is appropriate when no significant value is anticipated through the execution of additional PDCA cycles. It can be appropriate either to abort or repeat the PDCA cycle when the evaluated change would create adherence issues or no/minimal improvements were observed. A repeat of the PDCA cycle would be appropriate when the amount of improvement was not as much as desired but additional change enhancements opportunities have been identified. When objectives are met, the process needs to be standardized.

The power of PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation is in its apparent simplicity and inductive logic utilization. While being relatively easy to understand, it can be difficult to accomplish on a on-going basis due to the analytical difficulty of judging tested hypotheses on the basis of measured results.

PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation with Integrated Enterprise Excellence

PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation can be applied in business at both the project and business level:

Project level: Lean Six Sigma project execution DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control)

Business management: Integrated Enterprise Excellence 9-step business management system where there is PDCA loop between steps 9 and 4, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2
IEE Business Management System Illustrating PDCA loop

Additional Information about PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation

For additional information about Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) integration with PDCA see:

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PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation | Smarter Solutions

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PDSA Plan Do Study Act or PDCA Plan Do Check Act Cycle Implementation can be applied to improve an overall business as well as individual projects. The four-step process of PDCA is also known as the Deming cycle, Shewhart cycle, or plan-do-study-act (PDSA).

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Important information on how data should be used to create information and gather insights that are valuable to the organization

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If you've read the marketing collateral from any analytics or business intelligence vendor, you've no doubt come across the phrase "actionable insights." Every analytics or business intelligence solution promises to unlock a tidal wave of them for your business-maybe even in "real-time" if you're lucky. With many companies struggling to make sense of their data and create value with their big data investments, the promise of actionable insights sounds wonderful. Forrester reports 74% of firms say they want to be "data-driven," but only 29% are actually successful at connecting analytics to action. Actionable insights appear to be the missing link for companies that want to drive business outcomes from their data.

While the promise of actionable insights is alluring, I'm concerned that the phrase is fast becoming an empty buzzword as it is being overly misused by technology marketers. Often what is really being offered by many analytics solutions is just more data or information-not insights. Data, information and insights are not synonyms. There's actually a hierarchy pyramid with data at the foundation, information in the middle and insights at the pinnacle. In order to better understand what actionable insights are, it's important to understand the subtle differences between these key analytics terms.

Data is the raw and unprocessed facts that are usually in the form of numbers and text. Data can be quantitative (measured) or qualitative (observed). Data primarily exists in computer-friendly formats and mostly lives in databases and spreadsheets. Information is prepared data that has been processed, aggregated and organized into a more human-friendly format that provides more context. Information is often delivered in the form of data visualizations, reports and dashboards. Insights are generated by analyzing information and drawing conclusions. Both data and information set the stage for the discovery of insights that can then influence decisions and drive change.

As an example, my Fitbit watch gives me all kinds of activity data: steps, BPM (heart beats per minute), miles, calories and so on. At this moment, my watch says I've taken 7,442 steps today. This single fact is fairly useless, especially without more context. My Fitbit app includes a number of data tables and visualizations ( information) such as a weekly steps report where I can see how many steps I completed each day. When I analyze this trended information I can see my current trajectory is ahead of what I accomplished the past few days and with a little extra effort in the evening I can reach my daily target ( insight: I only need 2,558 more steps in next 5 hours).

While we're happy to obtain as many insights as possible from our data, not all of the takeaways will be actionable. You may not know what to do with some insights and choose to ignore them. For example, you'll notice on the chart above that I was very active on the previous Friday (18K steps!). Whatever I did on that day I should probably just replicate the same behavior all the time. Unfortunately, while it's an interesting data point, it was a short-lived aberration or outlier. I was on spring break vacation with my family, and I can't spend every day walking around Disneyland-that's not realistic or actionable for me.

Actionable insights sit at the apex of your data pyramid. An insight that drives action is typically more valuable than one that simply answers a question--especially an insight that makes you rethink something and pushes you in a new direction. They are the highly treasured output of all the work that goes into collecting, preparing and analyzing your data. Maximizing the actionable insights you receive from your analytics investments is important to your data-driven success. For this reason, I'd like to examine more closely what makes an insight truly actionable. I refuse to surrender the term "actionable insight" to becoming just another hollow, meaningless buzzword. Please consider the following six attributes when examining how actionable your data insights are:
1. Alignment 2. Context
When an insight is closely tied to your key business goals and strategic initiatives, it's more likely to drive action. If you don't know how to react to a particular metric when it significantly increases or decreases, you might be looking at an unnecessary vanity metric. Insights based on key performance indicators (KPIs) and other key metrics inherently engender a sense of urgency that other data won't. It's easier to interpret and convert strategically-aligned insights into tactical responses because they often relate directly to the levers in your business that you control, influence or are focused on.

It is hard to move forward on an insight if you are lacking ample background to appreciate why it's important or unique. We often need to have a comparison or benchmark to give data proper context. For example, if your company generated 1,400 leads this week your reaction to this result could change entirely with a dash of context. If you know your marketing team typically generates 1,250 leads each week you might do nothing. However, if your company just sponsored and exhibited at your industry's major convention last week, you may be wondering why it didn't translate into significantly more leads. Without accompanying context, an insight can end up raising more questions than action. Having ample supporting details ensures the insight results in action and not unwarranted skepticism and objections.

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Actionable Insights: The Missing Link Between Data And Business Value

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Forrester reports 74% of firms say they want to be "data-driven," but only 29% are actually successful at connecting analytics to action. Actionable insights are the missing link for companies that want to drive business outcomes from their data. This article defines six key attributes that make insights truly actionable.

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5 Modern Workplace Challenges for Leaders

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5 Modern Workplace Challenges for Leaders

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All great points to keep in mind when developing leadership skills for management

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Today's business leaders have to deal with ever-changing tech products, globalization and a new generation of workers. / Credit: Origami ship image via

Shutterstock

Nothing ever stays the same - especially not in the business world. Just as society changes and develops, so do workplace challenges.

As a leader, you must be able to adapt to the technological advancements and economic forces that directly impact your team. Here are five modern leadership challenges and how to handle them.

The latest and greatest tech tools from a few years ago are now obsolete, and business leaders may find it difficult to adjust. But staying ahead of the curve means using these gadgets to your advantage.

David Scarola, chief experience office of business coaching service provider The Alternative Board, noted that Generation Y, whose presence is continually increasing in the modern workplace, is generally very tech-savvy, especially with social media. As long as the appropriate administrative and security controls are in place, younger workers can help you ensure that your business stays current.

"The more experienced leader may never feel comfortable with technology," said Scarola. "If you're not [comfortable], allow your younger staff to help lead your company into a more technology-friendly direction." [5 Simple Ways to Become a Better Leader]

The internet has opened the doors for global business opportunities in many different industries. While the increasingly global economy has given businesses the chance to enter previously untapped markets, it also means that leaders need to be more aware of what happens in those markets.

"You're impacted by the globe, whether you're an individual consumer, a business owner or a Fortune 500 executive," said Shirley Engelmeier, author of " Becoming an Inclusive Leader" (eBookIt.com, 2014). "What happens everywhere else affects you."

Along with globalization, today's business world is seeing a huge shift in demographics, Engelmeier said. Disposable income and spending power have increased greatly for Generation Y, as well as Latino and African-American populations in recent years, so diverse input in the workplace will be required to adapt to this changing market.

"Who you're hiring matters for how you're tapping into these markets," Engelmeier told Business News Daily. "The traditional makeup of who's running [major corporations] is 96 percent [older] white males. Make sure you have representation and diversity across races, genders and ages."

Every business owner knows that the key to success is giving customers what they want, but are you doing everything you can to find out exactly what that is? Bruce Cazenave, CEO of home fitness solutions provider Nautilus, believes that many of today's leaders have trouble understanding the complex, changing needs of their customers.

"Not only can business leaders get caught up in outdated policies and yesterday's successes; they can also quickly lose sight of the emerging needs of their target audience," he said. "It's imperative to understand the emotional and intellectual essentials of your customers better than anyone else, and then motivate your organization to deliver innovative, relevant products and solutions that meet [customers'] needs."

Cazenave recommended spending quality time with your customers to let their voices drive progress and inform changes within your organization. You can do this with personal visits, consumer insight research, trade shows, social media and other communication channels.

"We are continuously in a learning mode," Cazenave said. "When we solicit feedback in a nonthreatening way, the information we get back is powerful and allows us to create one-of-a-kind products and solutions."

With websites like Glassdoor and Rate My Employer, employees can share their opinions about their employers, which means candidates may form an opinion of your company before contact is ever made.

"The internet has changed workplace team dynamics in ways many leaders don't fully realize," said leadership author and speaker David Dye. "An organization's management culture, compensation and even its interview questions are often available to anyone who wants to look. In the past, employees might have shrugged off a poor boss and thought, 'That's just the way it is.' Today, people know better."

Creating a strong culture of collaboration and respect within a company - and consequently, a good impression of it to the outside workforce - begins with its leaders. To build this culture, Dye advised treating your team as if they were volunteers who are motivated by factors other than salary and benefits.

"Recognize that your employees choose how they'll show up each day, how much energy they will expend, and whether or not they will solve problems or ignore them," Dye said. "Wages and salary do not directly affect these choices, but leadership, culture and internal motivations do. Act with integrity, ensure that expectations are clear, celebrate success, hold team members accountable for their commitments, believe in and respect your people, and equip them to succeed."
Additional reporting by Nicole Fallon. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

Sammi Caramela

Sammi Caramela is a recent graduate of Rowan University, where she majored in writing arts and minored in journalism. She currently works as a Purch B2B staff writer while working on her first novel in her free time. Reach her by email, or check out her blog at sammisays.org.

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Are Your Leadership Skills Outdated? 5 Modern Workplace Challenges

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Nothing ever stays the same - especially not in the business world. Just as society changes and develops, so do workplace challenges. As a leader, you must be able to adapt to the technological advancements and economic forces that directly impact your team. Here are five modern leadership challenges and how to handle them.

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Extrinsic rewards should be used sparingly because it can actually demotivate the employees who are naturally intrinsic.

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We all have different reasons for getting up every morning and doing what we do every day.

So why is it that, on some days, it can feel harder than others to get up when your alarm goes off, do your workout, crush a work or school assignment, or make dinner for your family?

Motivation (or a lack thereof) is usually behind why we do the things that we do.

There are different types of motivation, and as it turns out, understanding why you are motivated to do the things that you do can help you keep yourself motivated -- and can help you motivate others.

In this post, we'll dive into the two types of motivation -- intrinsic and extrinsic -- to learn the differences between the types, the benefits of each, and how to use both types to inspire productivity.

Definitions of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation involves doing something because it's personally rewarding to you. Extrinsic motivation involves doing something because you want to earn a reward or avoid punishment.
What Is Intrinsic Motivation?

When you're intrinsically motivated, your behavior is motivated by your internal desire to do something for its own sake -- for example, your personal enjoyment of an activity, or your desire to learn a skill because you're eager to learn.

Examples of intrinsic motivation could include:

Reading a book because you enjoy the storytelling

Exercising because you want to relieve stress

Cleaning your home because it helps you feel organized

What Is Extrinsic Motivation?

When you're extrinsically motivated, your behavior is motivated by an external factor pushing you to do something in hopes of earning a reward -- or avoiding a less-than-positive outcome.

Examples of extrinsic motivation could include:

Reading a book to prepare for a test

Exercising to lose weight

Cleaning your home to prepare for visitors coming over

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: What's the Difference?

At first glance, it might seem like it's better to be intrinsically motivated than extrinsically motivated. After all, doesn't it sound like it would be ideal if you didn't need anyone -- or anything -- motivating you to accomplish tasks?

But, alas, we don't live in such a motivation-Utopia, and being extrinsically motivated doesn't mean anything bad -- extrinsic motivation is just the nature of being a human being sometimes.

If you have a job, and you have to complete a project, you're probably extrinsically motivated -- by your manager's praise or a potential raise or commission -- even if you enjoy the project while you're doing it. If you're in school, you're extrinsically motivated to learn a foreign language because you're being graded on it -- even if you enjoy practicing and studying it.

So, intrinsic motivation is good, and extrinsic motivation is good. The key is to figure out why you -- and your team -- are motivated to do things, and encouraging both types of motivation.

When Intrinsic Motivation Is Best

Research has shown that praise can help increase intrinsic motivation. Positive feedback that is "sincere," "promotes autonomy," and "conveys attainable standards" was found to promote intrinsic motivation in children.

But on the other side of that coin, external rewards can decrease intrinsic motivation if they're given too willy-nilly. When children received too much praise for completing minimal work or single tasks, their intrinsic motivation decreased.

The odds are, if you're reading this blog post, you're not a child -- although children are welcome subscribers here on the HubSpot Marketing Blog. But the principles of this study are still sound for adults.

If you're a people manager, be intentional with your praise and positive feedback. Make sure that it's specific, empowering, and helps your direct reports understand your expectations and standards. But make sure you aren't giving too much praise for work that's less meaningful for your team, or they might lose intrinsic motivation.

If you're an individual contributor, tell your manager when their feedback is motivating -- give them positive feedback, too. By providing positive feedback to your manager when they give you praise that keeps you motivated, you, in turn, will extrinsically motivate them to keep managing you successfully. (Meta, huh?)

When Extrinsic Motivation Is Best

Extrinsic rewards don't just involve bribery (although bribery can work). In some cases, people may never be internally motivated to complete a task, and extrinsic motivation can be used to get the job done.

In fact, extrinsic rewards can promote interest in a task or skill a person didn't previously have any interest in. Rewards like praise, commissions, bonuses, or prizes and awards can also motivate people to learn new skills or provide tangible feedback beyond just verbal praise or admonishment.

But tread carefully with extrinsic rewards: Studies have shown that offering too many rewards for behaviors and activities that people are already intrinsically motivated to do can actually decrease that person's intrinsic motivation -- by way of the overjustification effect.

In these cases, offering rewards for activities the person already finds rewarding can make a personally enjoyable activity seem like work -- which could kill their motivation to keep doing it.

If you're a people manager, use extrinsic rewards sparingly to motivate your team to take on new responsibilities or achieve lofty goals. Bonuses, commissions, recognition prizes, and promotions can be an effective way to motivate or reward your team for learning new skills, taking on new challenges, or hitting a quarterly goal. But make sure you're giving your team members the time and resources to explore skills and projects they're already excited about independently -- without making them a part of their regular responsibilities, which could demotivate them.

If you're an individual contributor, work for the rewards you want, but don't over-exhaust yourself in the pursuit of extrinsic prizes. Make sure you're taking time, in your job or in your personal life, to explore activities that you enjoy just for the sake of doing them, to keep yourself balanced.

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Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: What's the Difference?

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What's the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation? Learn how to distinguish between the two and how to stay motivated, no matter how you feel.

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I have been guilty of using those words interchangeably but this article clearly marks the differences between leaders and managers. Bottom line: Managers manage groups, Leaders create teams

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Whether you run a landscaping business or are a wholesaler for electrical goods, you'll be expected to do your job, mitigate risks, build profit, manage your career profile, and be a worker, manager, and leader for any teams you're a part of.

You might think that being a manager and a leader are the same thing; however, there are key differences. Let's look at some of the best examples of a difference in attitude between management and leadership:

1. Managers Are Reactive, Leaders Are Proactive

As a manager, you'll be given your instructions. If something doesn't go to plan, a good manager will react to the bad news (or good news) accordingly. Displaying leadership is about more than that though; if you are a strong leader, you will anticipate changes and prepare in advance, steering your team to safety and ever-increasing profits.

Leaders who are proactive typically have a calm demeanor and roll with the punches. They also have confidence that their teams can overcome any challenge that may arise. This creates a less stressful environment for teams, knowing there is a plan of action and contingencies in place for when things don't go as planned. Of course, as with all things, good leaders need to take on managing and leading rolls.

2. Managers Have Employees, Leaders Have Followers

You'll manage a group of five or 10 as a good manager at a small company. As a manager, your team will be fixed. You'll react to situations, and your team will report to you. However, if you become known as a leader, then your team will come to you for help--but so will members of other teams. Being known as the guy or girl who gets ideas and acts decisively is the way to become a natural leader, and to increase your value one-hundredfold in business.

Leaders also nurture their teams to become leaders. They do this by seeing who their employees can become with the right training and resources, and not worrying too much about what the employees are like today. Leaders also create more leaders by creating key performance indicators instead of telling employees what to do. Leaders also know that becoming a leader takes time, and they give their employees room to make mistakes and learn from them.

3. Managers Manage Groups, Leaders Create Teams

This is corollary to the point above--as a manager, you'll manage your staff. As a leader, you realize that you are the director in a play--every person isn't one of the group, they are a unique cog that is vital to the running and promotion of the system as a whole. This is a key change of attitude that will bring out the best in your workforce. Vrej Sarkissian, CEO of Anoush Catering, says "When we help our employees work together as a team, we're able to put together astounding events for our customers. Our teamwork even enables us to give back to our community in a meaningful way. We value each member of our team as an integral piece of the machine and our customers can really see how it makes us a seamless unit instead of individuals."

4. Managers Shift Responsibility, Leaders Take Responsibility

Managers delegate tasks. They also delegate blame. We've all worked for that manager who wants to try out his new idea, yet when his own manager comes and asks what's going on suddenly your manager has no knowledge of the scheme. If you want to be respected as a leader, this can never happen. Leaders take responsibility.

5. Leaders Will Stand and Be Counted

A manager will keep their mouth shut, run everything smoothly, and then go home when the work is done. A leader won't. A leader is constantly pitching. Constantly making it count. Constantly trying to rework things both lower and higher in the hierarchy to make things work better.

6. Leaders Will Do What Needs to Be Done

There will be times when it gets hard. Really hard. You might have to let someone go. You might have to tell the team it's time for a pay cut, or that longer hours are needed. The key feature of a strong leader is that when the time comes, you are ready to do what needs to be done.

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6 Polarizing Differences Between Managers and Leaders

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Whether you run a landscaping business or are a wholesaler for electrical goods, you'll be expected to do your job, mitigate risks, build profit, manage your career profile, and be a worker, manager, and leader for any teams you're a part of.

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These are great tips on how to build trust in teams. As diversity increases in the workplace teams may have a hard time building trust across different cultures.

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One of the most essential characteristics for a high-functioning team - perhaps the single most important characteristic - is trust. Anyone who has worked on a team knows that team members must be able to trust each other to get the job done, and be committed and dedicated to the overall welfare of the group. In any group of individuals, trust is challenging to create and sustain, but in the case of a multicultural team it can be especially difficult for a variety of different reasons.

First of all, communication styles vary across cultures; so, too, does the extent to which people socialize or get down to business at the start of a meeting. There are differences in conventions around time, giving feedback, and disagreeing publicly. Multicultural teams are prone to friction due to perceptions of ethnocentrism, with minority team members feeling ignored or not taken seriously.

How can leaders of multicultural teams leverage the upside of diversity without falling prey to its inherent challenges? In our collective experience working with hundreds of individuals on cross-cultural teams around the globe, leaders of multicultural teams can use the following five tips to build trust between team members.

Structure the team for success. The great organizational behavior scholar Richard Hackman used to argue that the best way to ensure a positive process in a team is to create initial conditions that set up the team for success. For a multicultural team, that means making sure the team has a clear and compelling direction, its members have access to the information and resources they need to successfully carry out the work, stakeholders in different geographies and functions are on board with the team's agenda, and the team is staffed wisely - ideally with people who have the requisite technical skills as well as cultural intelligence and global dexterity. Given the built-in challenges these teams face to begin with, it's essential to staff them with as many curious, flexible, thoughtful, and emotionally stable members as possible.

Understand the cross-cultural makeup of your team. The leader of any cross-cultural team needs to understand the different cultures, language differences, and "fault lines" within the team, as well as the potential for misconception and miscommunication. For example, if the team comprises three Germans and three Koreans, you might guess that feedback will be a cultural tripwire. Many Germans are notoriously comfortable giving direct, unmitigated feedback, whereas the reverse is typically the case in Korea unless the dialogue is between senior and junior colleagues. Making note of these tensions can help you anticipate potential challenges and resolve them swiftly and effectively.

That said, leaders also must understand individual personalities. What if the three Korean members of the team all went to school in the U.S., lived and worked in Europe, and are anything but prototypical Korean in their cultural style? That would make for a very different set of predictions about group dynamics.

Set very clear norms and stick to them. Multicultural team members are inevitably going to bring a wide variety of different work styles and personal preferences to the table. The team leader must establish team norms that everyone sticks to - no matter what their personal default might be. Rather than simply imposing your own preferred style, start by taking into account what will work best for the team as a whole, and consider incorporating practices from other cultures that could be useful. For instance, if you normally assign individual responsibilities but many team members have a preference for handling work in small project groups, you could assign complex tasks to small groups.

You and Your Team Series

Managing Across Cultures

Make the norms clear, but be aware of who on the team might find it difficult to meet those expectations due to cultural backgrounds. You may need additional communication for those team members. For example, if you have established that team members must arrive at meetings by the designated time to ensure a prompt start (Western-style punctuality), you'll need to reinforce that norm consistently across the group. The same goes for patterns of communication. Multicultural team members benefit from knowing what type of information they will receive when, and from having a regular rhythm for video conferences, teleconferences, email updates, and one-on-one discussions. This creates context and predictability that helps to compensate for those instances when team members are remote from one another. Of course, sometimes things change and adjustment is required, but in general, keeping a consistent, clear structure regarding work styles and expectations is a critical way to create a common-ground team culture.

Find ways to build personal bonds. Both of us have found that one of the most powerful tools in easing potential conflict on a team is establishing personal connections. Naturally, different global cultures have different norms about relationship building. In some cultures, like the UK, it takes a long time for people to build a friendship; in other cultures, like Brazil, it seemingly happens overnight. Given this, you may not be able to encourage deep, personal relationships - but you can foster rapport and individual connections. Perhaps you discover that someone with a completely different background from you is also an amateur photographer, or you both have children who play the piano. You'd be surprised at the power of these personal bonds, especially on a multicultural team. Leaders must create conditions for these connections to form: Organize social events, pair quieter team members with vocal ones, or directly facilitate introductions between specific members who you think might have hidden commonalities. Chances are, the benefits will circle directly back to the team.

When conflict arises, address it immediately. Conflict is inevitable in any team, let alone a multicultural one. If tension arises, address it quickly so that a small conflict doesn't balloon into something impossible to manage. Leaders need to be capable of understanding multiple cultural perspectives and serving as a cultural bridge between parties in conflict situations. This may require an understanding of indirect as well as direct communication styles, and a readiness to have a frank group discussion or confidential side conversations, depending on the situation.

Trust is the glue that makes any team function at a high level, but it doesn't happen magically, especially in the case of a team composed of culturally diverse members. With the motivation to make things work and the tips above, you should be in a great position to leverage the benefits of diversity while minimizing its challenges.

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How to Build Trust on Your Cross-Cultural Team

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One of the most essential characteristics for a high-functioning team - perhaps the single most important characteristic - is trust. Anyone who has worked on a team knows that team members must be able to trust each other to get the job done, and be committed and dedicated to the overall welfare of the group.

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http://www.sbnonline.com/article/how-phil-libin-is-building-a-100-year-start-up-at-evernote-corp/

Communication with your team is crucial. Your members need to know why they are doing something, not just doing something because they were told to.

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1. Look outside of your area- many people are willing to pick and move if the job is right
2. Skim the fat and hire a free lancer- not all jobs in the organization require a full time or even part time employee.
3. Use social media- you can really get to know a person by how they market themselves. You can also use social media to stay in touch with potential hires in the future.
4. Take social media 1 step further and use social recruiting tools (this may have been a plug for TalentBin)

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Recruiting talent into your new or existing business should always be one of your top priorities as a leader. Without a quality workforce you can expect your sales to dwindle and your website or app to run subpar. All of these things can be a detriment to your place of business. But hiring the best and brightest is not always the easiest thing to do. With so many qualified individuals looking for work, finding the one for you can be an overwhelming task. Yes, you have a pile of resumes on your desk at your disposal, but how much does that resume really say? Sure, you can see their experience and education, but what about how they'll work with your existing team? You will probably not be able gather that information from that static piece of paper.

If you want to recruit the best people for the positions you have open, you will need to sometimes think outside of the box. We've compiled a few different ideas to help in that elusive search for the perfect employee or freelancer. Keep reading below to check them out.

1. Expand your search: While it may be tempting to keep your search narrowed down to your city, or even state, don't be afraid to expand that search even further. There might be a programmer somewhere in Nowhere, Nebraska itching for the opportunity to build their experience and move somewhere that their skills can be better utilized. While this method may take longer to find someone, remember that every single person you hire is an investment and the best investments take time.

2. Hire a freelancer: Sometimes you are not in need of a full time employee. It's possible you only need someone for a set number of hours (even if that is 100+ hours). When things like this arise, say a website that is in need of some desperate TLC, your best bet is to seek out a freelancer. But not just any freelancer, you want the best. That's where a company like comes into play. Toptal has a stable of top level developers and programmers that are ready to get to work. Recently, in an attempt to cover even more of the market, they have extended their group of freelancers to include UI designers, UX, and visual and interactive design, as well. Toptal is seriously working on becoming your one-stop shop for hiring programmers and designers of any sort.

As an added benefit, they take some of the stress and time away from you, the person hiring, by evaluating both the client and the talent. Once They will then send you a curated list of potential freelancers they feel would be a good match for your project. That's it. You then pay Toptal, they pay the freelancer, and you get a topnotch freelancer to finish that important project. With an impressive list of clientele including: AirBnB, , Zendesk, and JP Morgan, it's safe to say they Toptal knows what they're doing.

Special Note: I tried Toptal out last February and personally found my lead programmer using their company. I put together a few tips that you should do before starting in this journey as it can be expensive if you're not sure exactly what you need.

3. Use social media to your advantage: With practically everyone using social media in 2015, it can be a great place to learn more about potential candidates. Check out their , see who they are connecting with and what kind of things they share with their professional friends. Go check out their account. Seeing how they interact on social media will help you see if they'll be a good fit with the rest of your team. You can also use social media to "keep in touch" with people you'd be interested in seeing on your team. Even if they are already with a company, by keeping friendly conversation going you'll be fresh in their mind if they decide they are looking for a change.

4. as the behind the scenes portion of LinkedIn. By aggregating profiles from over 100 different websites, recruiters can use the services of TalentBin to tap into a talent pool larger than they could do themselves. It saves your company time and it can Social Recruiting Tools: While this might seem similar to number 3, it's actually an entire different ball game. Social recruiting tools such TalentBin can help you find the perfect employee even if they are "unfindable." Think of help you find those hidden gems in a sea of cubic zirconia.

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Recruiting talent into your new or existing business should always be one of your top priorities as a leader. Without a quality workforce you can expect your sales to dwindle and your website or app to run subpar. All of these things can be a detriment to your place of business.

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This is interesting because Zappos is considered a Holacracy and this type of culture wasn't covered in our textbook even though there was a case study on Zappos. There is a model used that is worth taking a look at in the article.

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YouTube/Zappos

Online retailer Zappos began a transition to "Holacracy" in 2013, deciding to ditch manager roles and job titles in favor of "self-management."

The alternative management system was created in 2007 by a software developer who says more than 300 companies worldwide have adopted it, including Twitter cofounder Ev Williams' company Medium and the cash automation company Arca.

Amazon-owned Zappos, which has more than 1,000 employees, is by far the largest company to try operating as a Holacracy.

But what exactly is it, and how does it work? Using the new book, " Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World" by the system's creator, we break it down.

It's meant to be agile and adaptable

Holacracy is the brainchild of Brian Robertson, a former programmer and entrepreneur turned management guru.

As he was growing the software company he started in 2001, Robertson tells Business Insider, he realized the management-hierarchy system wasn't agile or adaptable. "It was crushing the ability in people to actually contribute and use their gifts," he says.

He studied as much self-management theory as he could, and developed his own approach, Holacracy, in 2007. He left his software company in 2010 to found HolacracyOne, a company that provides tools and coaching to companies that adopt its management principles.

The system derives its name from "holarchy," a term coined by the writer Arthur Koestler in his 1967 philosophical psychology book, " The Ghost in the Machine." It refers to a collection of holons, which simultaneously function as parts and wholes, like organs in a body.

Circles replace the pyramidal hierarchy

The term "self-management" can be misleading, Robertson says, since it suggests a sort of anarchy of individuals. Instead, he calls it "distributed authority." An organization operating as a Holacracy isn't perfectly flat, but it takes powers traditionally reserved for executives and managers and spreads them to all employees.

HolacracyOne

General components

Anchor circle: Typically comprises the board.

General company circle (GCC): Typically comprises the traditional executive leadership of the company. It is the only sub-circle in the anchor circle.

Sub-circle: Dedicated to particular functions of a company, like marketing and production. The circle a sub-circle exists in is known as its super-circle.

Roles: An element of a traditional job broken down into a task. A marketing circle, for example, can contain roles like social media, advertising, web marketing, and brand development. Every role comes with agreed-upon accountabilities.

If a role's responsibilities become too much for just one person to take care of, then it can expand into a new sub-circle with its own roles.

It's important to note that a role is not representative of a person - a single employee can have many roles, and roles are always subject to change.

GlassFrog.com

Special roles

If a circle has a sub-circle, then they must be connected by the roles of Lead Link and Representative (Rep) Link. Both links attend the governance and operations meetings (described later) of both circles.

Lead link: Mandatory sub-circle role that is appointed by the super-circle. It is responsible for determining the circle's overall purpose, priorities, and strategies; assigning employees to roles, monitoring their performance, and reassigning roles for better fit; allocating the circle's resources; and defining the circle's metrics.

While they can assign work and determine strategy, they are intended to be stewards of the roles they're responsible for, not the people taking the roles. If disagreements arise among circle members, the ultimate resolution is left for the next scheduled operations meeting, but the lead link can make judgment calls regarding what is expected of each role's adopter.

"It is not the lead link's job to direct the team, or to take care of all the tensions felt by those in the circle," Robertson says. "As a lead link, you are not managing the people; you are representing the circle as a whole and its purpose within the broader environment of the organization."

Rep link: Mandatory sub-circle role that is elected by the members of its sub-circle. Whereas the lead link represents the purpose and direction of a sub-circle to its super-circle, the rep link is responsible for determining problems or frustrations the sub-circle has with the super-circle and resolving them. The rep link is also responsible for reporting the sub-circle's health to the super-circle.

Cross link: Optional role responsible for connecting its circle to either a parallel one or a circle that is far removed from it in purpose but still important to its mission. Robertson advises that only advanced holarchies use cross links, but says that a cross link (or links) between the anchor circle (the board) and the GCC (the company) can be quite useful.

Facilitator: Mandatory role for every circle, elected by members of its circle. Leads meetings.

Secretary: Mandatory role for every circle, elected by members of its circle. Keeps records of meetings.

There are structured meetings

Holacracy makes use of two highly structured meetings and one that is more open to interpretation. Robertson says the formality of the meetings is meant to streamline the decision-making process rather than add layers onto it. His intentions are to reduce the number of small daily interactions regarding decisions and eliminate time-sucking meetings with low yield.

HolacracyOne

Governance Meetings

Frequency: Typically monthly

Purpose: To refine a circle's operating structure (i.e. creating, amending, or removing roles, policies, or sub-circles; electing a facilitator, secretary, and rep link)

Process:

1. Check-in Round: "One at a time, each participant has space to call out distractions and orient to the meeting."

2. Administrative Concerns: "Quickly address any logistical matters, such as time allotted for the meeting and any planned breaks."

3. Agenda Building: "Participants add agenda items, using just one or two words per item. Each agenda represents one tension to process. Facilitator captures them in a list."

4. Process Each Item Using the Integrative Decision-Making Process: "Each agenda item is addressed, one at a time, using the Integrative Decision-Making Process," which is a system that allows the proposer to speak uninterrupted and others to weigh in, one at a time.

5. Closing Round: "Once the agenda is complete or the meeting is nearing its scheduled end, the facilitator gives each person space to share a closing reflection about the meeting."

Tactical Meetings

Frequency: Typically weekly

Purpose: To get each circle member on the same page and to address any problems hampering progress

Process:

1. Check-in Round: Each person has an uninterrupted chance to mention anything on their mind.

2. Checklist Review: Facilitator reads aloud a checklist for each of the roles, which the person in question responds to either with "check" or "no check."

3. Metrics Review: Each role responsible for a data report shares a brief on it.

4. Progress Updates: The facilitator reads aloud each project, asking, "Any updates?" The project lead either says "no updates" or gives a brief explanation.

5. Agenda Building: Each person has a chance to raise a tension, represented only by one or two words.

6. Triage Issues: Facilitator gives each person with a tension a chance to explain their issue and discuss it with other members. Facilitator determines what next steps need to be taken to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

7. Closing Round: Each person has an uninterrupted chance to share a closing reflection about the meeting.

Strategy Meetings

Frequency: Typically every six months

Purpose: To review the circle's overall progress and develop long-term goals

Process:

There is no mandated structure, but Robertson says the meetings should last around four or more hours, and can fit into the following skeleton.

1. Check-in Round

2. Orientation

3. Retrospective

4. Strategy Generation

5. Unpack the Strategy

6. Closing Round

It's like an operating system

YouTube/HolacracyOne

Robertson says the best way to understand Holacracy is as an operating system, meaning that it doesn't come pre-loaded with all the software needed to run a business.

Holacracy provides, he explains, "a set of core rules for defining, evolving, and enacting your business processes over time," but it doesn't account for basics like "compensation and performance management systems, financial control/budgeting processes, and hiring and interviewing processes."

He likens these processes to "apps" for the Holacracy operating system, and wants Holacracy users to share their apps on HolacracyOne's website.

Zappos, for example, is still figuring out how compensation will work for the company. It is currently experimenting with HolacracyOne's Badge-based Comp App, which assigns skills, talents, and capacities to badges, which have monetary value.

It takes a long time to start working

The initial transition at any company is always "painful and uncomfortable," Robertson says, since people of all experience levels need to learn an entirely new way of doing their jobs.

Amazon

It's why every company, whether a new startup of a few people or established company of over 1,000 employees, is advised to bring in a certified Holacracy coach to teach the system.

Robertson says that while he hasn't collected data on it, he's found that it takes around three months for most employees to get the hang of Holacracy. It may take longer, or it may never happen at all.

For a company the size of Zappos, Robertson predicts that it will take at least a few years for it to move past the clumsy learning stage and into the desired streamlined, accelerated phase where Holacracy feels natural.

Robertson doesn't think Holacracy is for every company, but he thinks its distributed authority is an approach many more companies will be adopting in the near-future.

"I suspect we're going to see more and more companies moving this way, in the same way we've seen more companies moving to embrace agility," he says. "Look at companies in the '50s versus today. They're radically different. I think this is the direction it's going."

For more details, you can check out Robertson's book, " Holacracy," and read the official constitution every participating company adopts.

SEE ALSO: Inside Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's radical management experiment that prompted 14% of employees to quit

NOW WATCH: The surprising reason 'Shark Tank' investor Robert Herjavec started his own company

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Here's how the 'self-management' system that Zappos is using actually works

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Online retailer Zappos began a transition to "Holacracy" in 2013, deciding to ditch manager roles and job titles in favor of "self-management." The alternative management system was created in 2007 by a software developer who says more than 300 companies worldwide have adopted it, including Twitter cofounder Ev Williams' company Medium and the cash automation company Arca.

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Here's a list of reward systems or fun things to motivate your employees to keep up the good work. Some of the more creative ideas that were listed include: T-Shirt Design contest for the new company logo, VIP meet & greets for new hires, Ambassador assignments,. The list goes on but those were my favorites.

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Remember how you felt the last time someone told you what a great job you were doing?

(Really think about it, and relive that moment of glory.)

That's why it's so important to make time to praise employees for a job well done.

Recognition makes people feel really good about themselves. It also motivates employees to keep up the good work. Positive reinforcement sets an example for everyone in your organization, showing them the kind of work you value most.

And it doesn't have to be an elaborate event. Here are 52 ways you can start rewarding your employees today.
1. CEO for the day
Let an employee be "CEO for the Day" and proclaim a jeans day, potluck or make a speech at a team meeting.
Chris Brennan, Performance Specialist 2. Lunch with the boss
Take your employees out to lunch and let them choose the location. Do your best to keep work related discussions to a minimum. Take this time to get to know more about what your employee's interests and hobbies are beyond their work lives.
Steve Moore, Director, The HR Center of Excellence 3. Team shopping spree
If you hit a number-based milestone, such as a sales goal, take that number and use it as the basis for a celebration. Let's say it's 16,425. Take everyone to the mall. Give each employee $164.25 with these rules: you have 164.25 minutes to spend as much of the money as possible and you must spend the money on yourself (not kids, not a spouse - nobody but yourself). Have them meet you in the middle of the mall when time is up for a show-and-tell about what they bought. Afterwards, go to dinner together.
Jill Evans Silman, MS-HRM, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Senior Performance Consultant, Recruiting Services 4. Acts-of-service auction
At an employee appreciation dinner or company party, give everyone play money to use at an auction. The auction items should be small, personal things the management team will do for the winning bidder: wash cars, cook a meal, bake a cake, doing the employee's job for 6 hours, baby-sitting, etc.
Jill Evans Silman, MS-HRM, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Senior Performance Consultant, Recruiting Services 5. Themed team lunch
Host a company lunch break, possibly themed, held outdoors (cookout or picnic) or formalized with nice linen on the tables.
Lynne Klein, PHR, Human Resource Advisor, HR Center of Excellence 6. Company apparel
Who doesn't love a free t-shirt or ball cap? Offering employees free company apparel and other logo merchandise can be a simple, inexpensive way to say, 'thank you'.
Mary Lawrence, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, MidMarket Human Resource Consultant 7. Gala guests
If your group has a relationship with a particular charity, buy a couple of tickets to their next lunch or dinner event and allow your employees to attend. Those events are always fun, and it provides them with a new experience.
Corinn Price, Director, Community Involvement 8. Team service project
Organize a community volunteer activity. To make it even more rewarding, consider letting your employees choose the organization/event.
Lynne Klein, PHR, Human Resource Advisor, HR Center of Excellence 9. 'Thank you' meeting
Call an employee into your office to just say thanks. It's most impactful if you simply say thanks for a particular thing and nothing else. Don't discuss other issues; only talk about the good work.
Jill Evans Silman, MS-HRM, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Senior Performance Consultant, Recruiting Services 10. Certificate of achievement
Present a certificate in honor of a specific achievement.
Kelley M Zanfardino, SPHR-CA, SCP, Human Resource Advisor, HR Center of Excellence 11. Recognition in front of peers
Highlight your employees' achievements by recognizing them in a company meeting, newsletter or on your company Intranet site.
Mary Lawrence, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, MidMarket Human Resource Consultant 12. Jeans day
Give out coupons that allow employees to wear jeans on a day of their choosing, or designate an all-employee jeans day.
Chris Brennan, Performance Specialist 13. VIP parking spot
Give an exemplary employee a dedicated parking space for a week or month.
Kelley M Zanfardino, SPHR-CA, SCP, Human Resource Advisor, HR Center of Excellence 14. Spot awards
When you see employees do something right, give them a (small dollar amount) gift card on the spot. You could also give tickets to a sporting or performing arts event. And to make it more affordable, you can purchase gift cards from discount websites, such as Living Social, Groupon, Restaurant.com, etc., or buy them from a warehouse, such as Costco.
Amy Marcum, Senior Human Resource Specialist 15. Hand-written note
A personal note written with sincerity and specifics can sometimes mean the most to an employee. Money or trinkets may never be as rewarding.
Bob Reticker, Director, Performance Improvement 16. Impromptu time off
Spontaneous late arrival or early departure days are always a motivator. For example, send a quick email that says, "It's a beautiful afternoon. Go enjoy it."
Emily Dusablon, PHR, SHRM-CP, Supervisor, HR Center of Excellence 17. Time off coupons
Give out coupons for 15 minutes of time off as a spot award. Employees can collect them to add up to leaving an hour early one day or coming in late one day.
Chris Brennan, Performance Specialist 18. Work-from-home day
Remember significant events in your employees' personal lives, such as a child starting kindergarten, and give them a work-from-home day so they can participate without worrying about coming into the office on time.
Emily Dusablon, PHR, SHRM-CP, Supervisor, HR Center of Excellence 19. Breakfast treat
Know your employees' favorite morning treat and show up with it - coffee, Diet Coke, breakfast tacos, donuts, etc.
Emily Dusablon, PHR, SHRM-CP, Supervisor, HR Center of Excellence 20. Indoor food truck
On a hot day, have the leadership team go around the office with a cart handing out ice cream (e.g., Klondike bars, ice cream sandwiches, etc.). On a cold day, have them push around a "Cocoa Cart," serving hot chocolate to the team.
Chris Brennan, Performance Specialist 21. Peer-to-peer recognition
Develop a peer recognition program that lets employees give each other on-the-spot accolades on a community bulletin board or internal website. This allows employees to recognize their peers directly. Each month, the employees receiving awards could be entered into a drawing for a gift card or other award.
Eric Cormier, PHR, Human Resource Specialist 22. Team birthdays and work anniversaries
Make employees feel special on their big day. Host a team lunch, throw a small party, pass out cupcakes - there are many simple ways to let them know you care.
Emily Dusablon, PHR, SHRM-CP, Supervisor, HR Center of Excellence 23. Points reward system
Develop a points system for a reward program. This provides a perfect platform for ongoing recognition. Employees receive points every time they go above and beyond. After accumulating a certain amount, employees can redeem their points for gifts. You could offer a variety of rewards for the employees to select from.
Amy Marcum, Senior Human Resource Specialist 24. Coffee shop meetings
Hold your one-on-one meetings at a local coffee shop so it's casual and relaxed. As a little treat, pay for your employees' drinks. For remote employees, send them online Starbucks gift cards and then Facetime/Skype with them from the coffee shop.
Jeff Miller, Director of Learning and Performance 25. Employee competitions
Incorporate some fun, healthy competition into the workplace - such as college football team brackets - and award the winner.
Emily Dusablon, PHR, SHRM-CP, Supervisor, HR Center of Excellence 26. Family invites
Invite employees' families to company celebrations.
Emily Dusablon, PHR, SHRM-CP, Supervisor, HR Center of Excellence 27. Bring-your-dog day
Allow employees to bring their dog to work occasionally.
Emily Dusablon, PHR, SHRM-CP, Supervisor, HR Center of Excellence 28. Special projects
Give your employees an opportunity to work on special projects beyond their regular responsibilities. Doing this will allow them to grow, and will also demonstrate your confidence in their abilities to do a good job.
Steve Moore, Director, HR Center of Excellence 29. Cover a major expense
When an employee goes above and beyond in a truly significant fashion, you could pay for a major payment or purchase for that individual. This might be a mortgage payment, automobile payment or major home appliance. There are two key considerations for making this a success. First, the reward should be tied to a significant achievement that resulted in huge savings or brought in additional revenue. Second, you should communicate to the employee, as well as the rest of your staff, how this behavior helped the organization succeed or gives the company a competitive advantage.
Michael Timmes, Senior Human Resource Specialist 30. Cookies for a cause
For an employee who's an active volunteer, have specially shaped cookies made and delivered with a thank you card. The shapes should reflect the cause the employee cares about. For instance, if the employee volunteers with military veterans, the cookies might be in the shapes of stars and flags.
Corinn Price, Director, Community Involvement 31. Charitable donation
Find out what their favorite charity is and donate to it in their honor.
Corinn Price, Director, Community Involvement 32. Summer fun in the office
Put on a season of "Summer Fun" from Memorial Day to Labor Day where everyone is in for a drawing of a sleep-in day, long lunch or early release. Each week winners are announced, and everyone usually "wins" something twice per summer.
Michelle Kankousky, Corporate Learning & Development Consultant 33. Traveling trophy
Create a traveling trophy (e.g., golden object, special hat, figurine, etc.) that moves employee-to-employee based on being "caught" doing something outstanding.
Michelle Kankousky, Corporate Learning & Development Consultant 34. Warm welcome
Set up a "Welcome to Work" station at the employee entrance with coffee, juice, donuts for the a.m. crew, or coffee, soda, cookies for the p.m. crew. Decorate the station with positive messages on signs (e.g., "Our employees are #1" or "Through these doors walk the world's greatest employees".)
35. Department recognition bulletin board
Recognize departments on a rotating basis. Each month a designated bulletin board highlights their contributions to the organization, the individual employees, their greatest achievements, etc.
36. Different dress code
Designate a day to change-up the dress code, e.g., casual clothes day, t-shirt day, silly hat day, Hawaiian dress day, etc.
37. Off-campus outing
Set up an off-site bowling, sporting, theatre or other event to recognize an entire department/work group (also good team building).
38. Post team achievements in breakrooms
Post team results in common areas being sure to include the names of each member. It may be a chart or graph that shows positive improvement or it may be a simple description of a project that highlights the benefits to the organization.
39. Secret Santa-style appreciation
Use the "Secret Santa" concept. Have all employees draw a name of another employee. They would then identify an achievement/contribution particular to that person and send an anonymous note of appreciation.
40. Wall of fame
Create a "Wall of Fame." Post customer compliments, charts/graphs depicting positive progress, copies of certificates (e.g., training completed, awards, acknowledgment of achievement, etc.), peer-to-peer notes of thanks, etc.
41. Pay it forward
Develop a unique award that employees pass among each other as an expression of recognition.
42. Open house
Create an "Open House" in which employees can invite family/friends to visit their worksite and see what they do. In preparation for the "event," ask employees to display their accomplishments in creative ways.
43. T-Shirt design contest
Hold a contest to design a t-shirt that includes the company logo. The winning design is used on a t-shirt to be worn on a special day or for a special event.
44. Health fair
Sponsor a wellness fair to coincide with annual benefits enrollment.
45. Pleasant break room
Redecorate break rooms and continue to ensure they are clean and maintained regularly. Employees want to know the organization appreciates their hard work and are deserving of a quality space to rejuvenate.
46. Post-It praise
Randomly, post a thank-you note/letter of praise on an employee's office door/desk/work station/equipment.
47. Hidden praise
Hide several positive notes of personal praise around your employees' work area.
48. Brand-name thanks
Give employees a "branded" treat expressing appreciation, such as Life Savers, Kudos bars, Million Dollar bars, etc.
49. Ambassador assignment
Invite employees to represent their department at a meeting they typically would not attend. Have them report back to their team.
50. VIP meet-n-greet
Introduce an employee to the "VIPs" in your organization - this could be upper members of your management team or key customers. The message is "this is an important employee whom the VIP should know."
51. Educational investment
Sending an employee to a seminar/educational activity of interest to them gives the message that the company cares to invest in their personal development.
52. Praise from a customer
Ask customers or vendors to recognize employees who have contributed to their positive experience with the company by providing them with a card or unique item to present to the employee of their choice. The employee can then turn the item in for an additional award.

Maya Angelou said it best, "...people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Whether you use one or several of these ideas to reward your employees, it really comes down to making them feel appreciated and valued.

For more tips on motivating employees, download our free e-book, How to Develop a Top-Notch Workforce That Will Accelerate Your Business.

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52 Epic Ways to Reward Your Employees - Insperity

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Remember how you felt the last time someone told you what a great job you were doing? (Really think about it, and relive that moment of glory.) That's why it's so important to make time to praise employees for a job well done. Recognition makes people feel really good about themselves.

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Why Modern Work Culture Makes People So Miserable

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Why Modern Work Culture Makes People So Miserable

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Towards the middle of this article there's a video "This is What It's Like to Work at a Tech Startup as a Non-millennial" He shared some interesting points about how this adhocracy culture isn't good for the long run and how older generations are not going to like working for a company that has Foosball tables and beer in the office. Does this culture discriminate towards generational diversity? I would love to work in that type of environment but I'm working in an office with wood panels and vintage time cards and I feel miserable.

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Dan Lyons' account of his time at the software company HubSpot describes a workplace in which employees are disposable, "treated as if they are widgets to be used up and discarded." And HubSpot is scarcely unique: The description of Amazon's work environment is just one of many similar cases. An increasing number of companies offer snacks, foosball, and futuristic jargon to keep employees' minds off their long hours and omnipresent economic insecurity.

Whether that works, and for how long, is an open question.

Of course, in the new economy ever fewer companies hire people like Lyons as employees in the first place. Many workplaces prefer to use independent contractors for much of the companies' work. A recent working paper by labor economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger concluded that the proportion of the U.S. labor force in alternative work arrangements-working for temporary help agencies or as independent contractors, for example-expanded by some 50% in the decade from 2005 to 2015. Moreover, they wrote, "all of the net employment growth in the U.S. economy from 2005 to 2015 appears to have occurred in alternative work arrangements."

Three facts about the new deal at work and the new work arrangements are important. First, these new work arrangements are actually old, much like how work was organized before the modern employment relationship originated. Second, these new/old work arrangements represent a natural progression of company policies, begun decades ago, that tell people that companies owed them nothing except promised pay and to make them more employable. And third, by leaving people to navigate the contemporary labor market essentially alone, the employment arrangements disrupt an old and important reason for working-the opportunity to be part of a group.
The New Work Arrangements are Actually Old
As numerous labor historians and sociologists have documented, before there were large companies employing people and using elaborate human resource policies to govern recruitment, compensation, benefits, and training, work was mostly performed by small entrepreneurs using family labor (as on farms) or by contract labor paid on a piece-work basis.

The modern employment relationship emerged primarily because of enlightened employer self-interest. As UCLA economist Sanford Jacoby documented in his book Employing Bureaucracy, rule-based control over labor emerged as a response to the inefficiencies caused by a capricious employment relationship that left employees alienated and turnover extremely high. Jacoby's Modern Manors detailed how generous benefits such as paid vacations and pensions arose under a system called "welfare capitalism" as a way to forestall unionization and government regulation. As an example of this, Henry Ford's famous $5 a day wage and a concomitant reduction in daily work hours from 9 to 8 arose because Ford saw that he needed to pay more to retain workers and ensure they would show up. His famous automobile assembly line couldn't run with people missing.

Although it is coupled with more computer surveillance and fancy scheduling platforms to pair people with work, today's use of independent contractors paid on a piece-rate system represents a return to the work arrangements of 140 years ago, not some new managerial innovation.
Employees Beware
Second, the need for employees to fend for themselves is also a hoary idea. The number of employers offering some form of employment security-a no-layoff policy-has declined drastically. What once was a practice cited by many companies on the Great Place to Work list now exists almost nowhere.

Decades ago, employers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere began telling people that employees were responsible for their own careers. A company could at best deliver on promised pay and benefits and hopefully provide workers with jobs that would build their skills and make them more employable (possibly elsewhere).

Almost 30 years ago, Northwestern professor Paul Hirsch wrote Pack Your Own Parachute to provide advice to workers in an era of mergers, downsizing, and outsourcing. Fifteen years later, Dan Pink's Free Agent Nation achieved best-seller status with its combination of practical suggestions on how to navigate an increasingly market-based labor market along with inspiring stories of free agents who loved their new autonomy.

The idea of reciprocity inside companies-repaying the loyalty of employees to their employer with company loyalty to its workers-is mostly gone. Carnegie-Mellon professor Denise Rousseau co-authored a paper reporting that within two years of joining their employer, more than half of the people surveyed reported that the implicit and explicit psychological contracts with their employer had been violated. Research by Virginia business school professor Peter Belmi and I found that when you told people they were making decisions about whether or not to reciprocate a favor, their motivation to do so depended on whether they thought they were in an organizational or interpersonal context. People put in an organizational mind-set were much less likely to reciprocate.

Companies started to cut employees loose quite a while ago. What we see today is just a continuation of a trend to treat people as human resources, as assets to be acquired and discarded according to the return for doing so.
What's Missing?
What's missing from the current labor market is a sense of humanity-as contrasted with lots of emphasis on efficiency, costs, and productivity.

Human beings are social creatures. We crave companionship, seek to be part of communities, and thrive on social support. Not surprisingly, solitary confinement is increasingly under fire for being cruel and excessive punishment. Research consistently finds a relationship between social support and health, because social support in the workplace can buffer workplace stressors and contributes to physical and mental well-being. Working as free agents for multiple employers can separate people from workmates and a community that provide both job satisfaction and social support.

Pope Francis's recent message on family life recognizes the inhumanity and destructiveness of many contemporary workplaces. Describing families as being "under siege" by the pressures of modern life, the Pope noted, "In many cases, parents come home exhausted, not wanting to talk, and many families no longer even share a common meal." He commented that many families "often seem more caught up with securing their future than with enjoying the present," a situation aggravated by concerns about financial security and steady employment.
What's Next
As Jacoby and others have noted, the benign workplace situation of higher wages, employment security, decent benefits, and due process protections largely originated from employers' desires to control their own work practices. Employers did not want policies subject to either collective bargaining agreements or government regulation. The diminishing role of both the state and organized labor in the contemporary economy-in the U.S. and abroad-undoubtedly has much to do with the evolution of labor market arrangements.

Today, individual companies face a free-rider/collective action problem. If they offer a better deal, beyond a certain point the companies incur costs that their competitors do not. This idea of matching what others do-and no more-has set off a race to the bottom that only seems to abate when challenged by a tightening labor market or political actions such as the current groundswell for higher minimum wages and more paid family leave.

But human needs for safety and security-a part of Maslow's hierarchy-and for social interaction are primal, existing regardless of competitive pressures, unions, government regulations, and the unemployment rate. This disconnect, between human needs and work arrangements that fulfill them, is one of the costs exacted in contemporary labor market arrangements. And it's one reason for the anger so visibly playing out in elections all over the industrialized world.

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and author of Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time.

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Why 'Modern' Work Culture Makes People So Miserable

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Dan Lyons' account of his time at the software company HubSpot describes a workplace in which employees are disposable, "treated as if they are widgets to be used up and discarded." And HubSpot is scarcely unique: The description of Amazon's work environment is just one of many similar cases.

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SWOT analysis and other decision making tools

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SWOT analysis and other decision making tools

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In class we used SWOT to organize the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to expect when making a decision. Here are 7 other decision making tools.

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Credit:

Viorel Sima | Shutterstock

Running a business requires the ability to make good decisions. One wrong choice can affect the entire company. It is crucial for business owners to understanding the weight behind each decision they make, and to continually improve their decision-making skills.

The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth outlines seven basic steps in effective decision-making:

1. Identify the decision to be made

2. Gather relevant information

3. Identify alternatives

4. Weigh evidence

5. Choose among alternatives

6. Take action

7. Review decision and consequences

While the basic principles might be the same, there are dozens of different techniques and tools that can be used when trying to make a decision. Here are some of the more popular options, many of which use graphs, models or charts. You may want to use a combination of these techniques to arrive at your final decisions.

Decision matrix: A decision matrix is used to evaluate all the options of a decision. When using the matrix, create a table with all of the options in the first column and all of the factors that affect the decision in the first row. Users then score each option and weigh which factors are of more importance. A final score is then tallied to reveal which option is the best.

T-Chart: This chart is used when weighing the plusses and minuses of the options. It ensures that all the positives and negatives are taken into consideration when making a decision.

Decision tree: This is a graph or model that involves contemplating each option and the outcomes of each. Statistical analysis is also conducted with this technique.

Multivoting: This is used when multiple people are involved in making a decision. It helps whittle down a large list options to a smaller one to the eventual final decision.

Pareto analysis: This is a technique used when a large number of decisions need to be made. This helps in prioritizing which ones should be made first by determining which decisions will have the greatest overall impact.

Cost-benefit analysis: This technique is used when weighing the financial ramifications of each possible alternative as a way to come to a final decision that makes the most sense from an economic perspective.

Conjoint analysis: This is a method used by business leaders to determine consumer preferences when making decisions.

SWOT Analysis: SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, which is exactly what this planning tool assesses.

PEST Analysis: An acronym for political, economic, social and technological, PEST can improve decision-making and timing by analyzing external factors. This method considers present trends to help predict the future ones.

There are a few common mistakes people make during the decision-making process that could result in a poor choice. Jeff Miller, the director of corporate training and development for human resources and business performance solutions provider Insperity, said that leaders often either rush decisions or procrastinate on making them.

"As well as being uncomfortable or time-consuming, avoiding decisions can also hurt your reputation," Miller wrote on the Insperity website. "Your staff may perceive it as a lack of care for their well-being, which can create a lack of respect."

Another mistake is not trusting your own gut feelings when trying to make a decision. Business leaders often both over and underestimate the value of the information they receive from others. Instead of letting others sway your belief one way or another, the U.S. Small Business Administration advised leaders to keep the opinions of others in perspective.

"Our society teaches us to ignore [our gut] feelings, but by tuning into your intuition, you will find that you will make much better decisions in the long run," the SBA writes on its website.

While you can and should consult expert advice on particularly difficult decisions, the SBA advises leaders not to rely too heavily on those opinions when evaluating their choices.

"Oftentimes, people have a tendency to place too much emphasis on what experts say," said the SBA article. "Remember, experts are only human and have their own set of biases and prejudices just like the rest of us."
Additional reporting by Chad Brooks.

Sammi Caramela

Sammi Caramela is a recent graduate of Rowan University, where she majored in writing arts and minored in journalism. She currently works as a Purch B2B staff writer while working on her first novel in her free time. Reach her by email, or check out her blog at sammisays.org.

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Techniques and Tools to Help You Make Business Decisions

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Running a business requires the ability to make good decisions. One wrong choice can affect the entire company. It is crucial for business owners to understanding the weight behind each decision they make, and to continually improve their decision-making skills.

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Data has been very helpful for helping managers make effective decisions but it is still critical to use the management teams unique knowledge and understanding of the company. Using both human resource and data tools the best decision can be made.

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Executive Summary

Data-driven management has risen sharply from a decade ago, when Thomas Davenport wrote Competing on Analytics. Data is now the critical tool for managing many corporate functions, including marketing, pricing, supply chain, operations, and more. This movement is being further fueled by the promise of AI and machine learning, and by the ease of collecting and storing data about every facet of our daily lives. But has the pendulum swung too far? Are managers relying excessively on data to guide their decisions, abdicating their own knowledge and experience?

One possible solution may be found in Agent-Based Simulation (ABS), a novel approach to solving complex business problems through computer simulations. One of the most appealing aspects of ABS is that it combines domain expertise and data. The domain expertise is used to define the structure of the simulation, which is unique to each business problem. The data is used partly to refine the details of the simulation, and partly to ensure that as the simulation runs, the resulting outcomes match real-world results. With this approach, the manager's expertise regains the primary role, and the results of the simulation can be analyzed by the manager and data scientist together.

Data is now the critical tool for managing many corporate functions, including marketing, pricing, supply chain, operations, and more. This movement is being further fueled by the promise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and by the ease of collecting and storing data about every facet of our daily lives.

But is the pendulum starting to swing too far? As a practitioner and teacher of predictive analytics, my greatest concern is what I call the "big data, little brain" phenomenon: managers who rely excessively on data to guide their decisions, abdicating their knowledge and experience.

In a typical big data project, a manager engages an internal or external team to collect and process data, hoping to extract insights related to a particular business problem. The big data team has the expertise needed to wrangle raw data into usable form and to select algorithms that can identify statistically significant patterns. The results are then presented to the manager through charts, visualizations, and other types of reports. This scenario is problematic because most managers are not experts in data science, and most data scientists are not business experts. Addressing this dichotomy requires individuals who can "serve as liaisons" between the two, as Todd Clark and Dan Wiesenfeld suggested in a recent HBR article.

This, however, is simply a palliative that does not resolve the underlying problem. As Tom Davenport wrote in HBR in 2006, the year before publishing his seminal book, Competing on Analytics, "For analytics-minded leaders, then, the challenge boils down to knowing when to run with the numbers and when to run with their guts." Rather than reducing reliance on intuition, the advanced methodologies of big data require managers to use even more intuition to make sense of the growing number of outputs and recommendations being generated by data models.

Furthermore, the predictive models created by big data methodologies do not incorporate the manager's unique knowledge of the business. This is tantamount to someone collecting a lot of data and then deciding to throw away half of it - except in this case you are arguably throwing away the more valuable half, because the manager has specific knowledge of the business, while the data science approaches are generic.

How can we effectively combine data science and business expertise? In a 2002 HBR article titled "Predicting the Unpredictable," my business partner Eric Bonabeau introduced the concept of a gent-based simulation (ABS), which at that time was a relatively novel approach to solving complex business problems through computer simulations. Fifteen years later, Icosystem (Bonabeau's company, which I am still a core member of) and a number of others have demonstrated the power of ABS as a business management tool.

For example, Bonabeau's article described a project with Eli Lilly to develop a new way of managing drug development pipelines. In 2008 Bonabeau and two members of the Eli Lilly R&D leadership published an HBR article in which they reported that the new approach had been able to deliver molecules to Phase II trials "at almost twice the speed and less than a third of the cost of the standard process."

Although ABS was first created as a tool for social science research about four decades ago, it is only now starting to gain widespread adoption because of the dramatic increase in available computing power. For instance, Icosystem developed a simulation of the daily behavior of more than 300,000 sailors in the U.S. Navy from recruitment to retirement. This type of 20-year simulation can run on a laptop in less than one minute, and it's enabled the Navy to test in one day more scenarios than they would normally be able to test in one year.

But what about the "big data, little brain" problem? One of the most appealing aspects of ABS is that it combines domain expertise and data. The domain expertise is used to define the structure of the simulation, which captures the day-to-day behaviors and interactions unique to each business problem. The data is used partly to refine the details of the simulation and partly to ensure that, as the simulation runs, the resulting outcomes match real-world results. With this approach, the manager's expertise regains the primary role, and the results of the simulation can be analyzed by the manager and data scientist together, as they both understand the workings of the simulation.

Besides increasing transparency, combining domain expertise and data also increases predictive accuracy. Back in 2014 a leading automaker worked with an ABS marketing analytics platform to plan the launch of a new model. The ABS recommended launching the new model six months earlier than the client had planned. In 2016 the automaker launched the new model as recommended; a year later it found that ABS had predicted monthly sales for the first year with 93% accuracy.

By combining data and the manager's expertise into a predictive model, ABS solves complex problems in a transparent way with a high degree of predictive accuracy. The increased availability of commercial ABS tools and didactic materials suggest that this new approach is poised to revolutionize business management.

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The Best Approach to Decision Making Combines Data and Managers' Expertise

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Executive Summary Data-driven management has risen sharply from a decade ago, when Thomas Davenport wrote Competing on Analytics. Data is now the critical tool for managing many corporate functions, including marketing, pricing, supply chain, operations, and more.

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One thing I didn't really think about was employees and managers abusing the schedule. The employee may be abusing the schedule by requesting longer weekends, avoiding shifts with less exciting tasks, asking to leave early, or switching shifts with someone to make more money. The manager can be abusing the schedule by making tentative "on call" shifts, canceling shifts, extending shifts, or short schedules.

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You have employees that are juggling school, families, or additional jobs, and you are trying to juggle all of that in your employee schedule. It's not easy, and it's a serious enough topic that the U.S. Congress took to creating legislation to govern it through "The Schedules That Work Act." While the goal was to protect employees who might be harmed by unpredictable scheduling techniques, business owners know that scheduling employees is never an easy thing and have as much vested interest in the process as anyone.

Good news: it doesn't have to be difficult. There are eight things you can do to make scheduling easier for both you and your employees.

1. Identify true scheduling abuse.

There are two people scheduling abuse comes from: your employee, and you (or your scheduling manager).

Let's start with employees. Most of your employees are great. They want to do a good job and they aren't there to cause problems. When they ask for a schedule change, they truly need it. They aren't trying to get out of work or in any way manipulate you or other employees to get better shifts. Schedule abuse might be:

Constantly asking for Friday or Monday schedule changes.

Asking to leave early multiple times a week.

Switching with people to get shifts that have higher tips.

Avoiding shifts with onerous tasks (stocking shelves, inventory, etc.)

Being a no-show when informed that you can't find a replacement and they must come into work.

Asking for last-minute changes to their schedule without a legitimate reason (e.g. family or medical emergency).

Always having the same or similar emergencies that keep them from working their scheduled shifts.

If this is happening, use what you've (hopefully) laid out in your employee handbook regarding the handling of the matter. Talk to the employee in private to learn if there really is a crisis in their life or if they are abusing the schedule.

When you (or a manager) are the purveyor of scheduling abuse, it looks a bit different.

On-call scheduling. This often takes the form of on-call scheduling, which means you schedule an employee to work at a certain time, but it is only potentially going to be used. If they aren't needed, they aren't called in. On-call scheduling prevents them from working elsewhere, but doesn't guarantee them any work or income. On-call scheduling is super convenient for the employer, but is a terrible way to treat employees.

Canceling at the last minute. In a way, canceling an employee's scheduled shift at the last possible moment is a bit like on-call scheduling. They have no time to work elsewhere or make other plans, but you aren't stuck paying them because you didn't need them. Once in awhile, an employee might enjoy a day off here and there, but for most hourly employees, especially, they need that income. Last minute schedule cancellations hurt their budget in a big way.

Scheduling and updating schedules right down to the wire. Some employers only create the schedule for workers a few days in advance (and some, only hours, which is much worse). Doing this makes it impossible for your employees to make other plans, and their entire life, whether social or grabbing shifts for other jobs, is in limbo. If your business doesn't already have a policy, consider one in which this is not an acceptable practice.

Extending employee shifts past their scheduled time. Forcing or expecting employees to stay past their scheduled time is completely unfair. While they may do it to grab the extra hours or because they are afraid to say no, you need to ask them if they are willing to do it instead of expecting that they'll do it. If they can't or won't, they should not be penalized. This is an area where the scheduling abuses or behavior of other employees can have an effect on your better employees. If someone isn't showing up for their shift on time, others have to pick up the slack.

Business owners usually don't mean to abuse how they schedule employees. You're looking after the bottom line, after all, and you are trying to find the perfect balance between having enough employees working without paying for too many. You don't want to be understaffed, nor do you want to be overstaffed. And you might have one-off scenarios that require you to make a last-minute adjustment, or ask an employee if she could be on-call. But scheduling abuse as described above will cause employees to quit, and you shouldn't make them a habit.

Once you know what scheduling abuse looks like, you know whether or not you're dealing with a disciplinary problem or a true scheduling problem. Treating a scheduling problem as if it were a disciplinary problem, or vice versa, will cost you valuable employees.

Remember, you are trying to keep your employees , not drive them away. Abusive scheduling by you, or allowing scheduling abuses by other employees, will send your best and most valuable resource packing.

Invest in employee scheduling software, you can boost productivity at your organization and use the time you save to grow other areas of your business.

2. If you must use on-call, hire specifically for that.

Again, on-call is a great tool for employers, because it provides a bank of workers without expending money unless needed.

When an employee is hired understanding they are going to be on-call, they know what they are getting into. On-call only works when the employee has agreed to the terms you have laid out and they understand clearly what it involves. When using this specific approach, you:

Must have dedicated on-call policies in your handbook, both detailing what is required of employees and of you.

Will attract people who like the idea of on-call and are actually looking for that kind of work.

Are probably going to find employees who don't need the job as their sole financial lifeline, but have other interests.

On-call does not work for people who don't agree to it first, or don't understand that it doesn't mean a steady paycheck. You must be clear about that before moving to on-call.

3. Know your business.

It is impossible to schedule employees well if you don't know your own business. In order to create a successful schedule without veering into abusive techniques, you must know:

Build your schedule with more slots for when it is busiest. What hours, days, and months you are the busiest. Understand the seasons, the lunch hour rushes-whatever applies to your business.

Schedule the right kind of employees. You need employees to cover every task necessary. You don't need all cashiers or all cooks. Figure out what it takes to keep everything running smoothly.

Under-schedule, and you'll get burned out employees and frustrated customers. Overschedule and you'll have employees standing around losing motivation to do anything while you lose money.

4. Know your employees.

Do you have mostly college or high school employees? Do you have a lot of moms or dads who have to drop their kids off at school and pick them up? Would it be easier to change the shifts to account for this?

Know who is working for you, and what their life schedule is going to require. Find out what the class load is for a semester, and make a schedule that works accordingly. When you know your employee, you can schedule compassionately and not make them dread constantly asking for a schedule change.

5. Know how to communicate your schedule.

Are you a dictator when it comes to your schedule?

If your employees don't understand the how and why behind the schedule they are told to work, resentment can grow. At your meetings or through regular employee communication, give them a heads-up on why, for example, the coming weekend you are scheduling more than usual, or why it's so important to have three people on the morning shift even if it seems unnecessary.

Be able to explain why your schedule is as it is, how it functions, and why the employe is allowed (or not allowed) to make a schedule change. Show them the bigger picture so they see how the work they do, and when they do it, affects the business.

6. Make it easy for employees to legitimately ask for schedule changes.

How difficult is it for an employee to ask for a change in their schedule? Do they have to go through 20 questions and the third degree and a lot of accusations? Again, unless you have an employee consistently abusing your schedule, you should want to work with him. That means:

A system for asking for changes. Does the employee just call your business and tell whoever answers they can't come in tomorrow and then hang up? Do they send a random text? Or do you have a specific procedure of who to call and how to get permission? It should be a part of your employee handbook , including who to call, how much notice to give, and what happens if you don't follow the procedure.

Older employees might prefer the phone, while younger ones want to send a text message. It can be difficult to field all of the information across different communication platforms. Be sure your employees understand what method to use when communicating schedule changes. A specific communication tool. When I Work allows you to find replacements on the go. Once you are notified that someone can't make a specific shift, you can turn around and notify eligible employees immediately that you are looking for a replacement.

A policy on behind-the-scenes changes. If an employee finds a shift replacement without your help, does that create a problem for you? If it does, make sure they know you must be aware of the schedule change. If it doesn't, great. Some employees may find friends to work their shift when it arises. Still, you need to stay on top of this to know whether or not you have an employee who is abusing the schedule. It is easy for that "friend" to start to feel resentment, even if they keep taking the shift.

An understanding on what scheduling abuse is. Your employees need to know what you consider to be too much as far as schedule changes, and under what circumstances changes aren't allowed. Be clear in the handbook about what you consider schedule abuse.

Basically, as long as employees know what you expect from them if they need to change the schedule, and that you won't be giving them a hard time within the policy limits you've set, things will go smoothly.

If you notice a great employee struggling with a particular shift on a particular day, consider that you need to permanently adjust the schedule and avoid putting them there at all. The dread of asking for a schedule change can make an otherwise great job lose its luster. Make it easy for your great employees, if you can, but taking note of times when they consistently can't work and see if you can find a different scheduling arrangement.

7. Find employees who are interested in working additional shifts.

Some employees have lives that are complex and busy and they are not going to be interested in changed or extra shifts. They shouldn't be penalized for this. Instead, find employees who are:

Willing. Not all employees want to pick up extra hours. You don't want someone working who doesn't want to be there; it will affect the other employees and customers. Ever been to a restaurant and had a server complaining about how much they had to work? It's not a pretty experience.

Flexible. Some employees have more flexible lives and are able to take on shifts. Others may want to, but their flexibility is limited.

Qualified. You must know which employees are qualified to work in available slots in the schedule.

You can manage this data in a spreadsheet or even something as basic as a list on a piece of paper, referencing it to use for a phone call or text message.

The When I Work app makes quite simple by offering up available shifts to the employees you'd like to offer them to. Send it out to the list and the first to respond will get the shift.

8. Make it easy for employees to access the schedule.

Is your schedule a piece of paper tacked to a break room wall? Do your employees have to frequently stop in or call your business and ask other employees to run back there and check the schedule? This wastes time-both the employee on the clock who has to stop working to relay the schedule, and for the employee not on the clock.

Making your schedule available online so that everyone can access it easily from where they are is a huge help. Additionally, sending out alerts or messages to let them know when changes you've made affect them help, too. Employees are busy; they might forget to check if you don't personally message them.

You might consider:

When I Work: It's the easiest way to schedule, communicate, and track time with your employees. With When I Work, your employees get 24/7 access to their work schedules via their smartphones and the web app. They also get shift reminders, can clock in and out from their own devices, and can use the app to make schedule change requests (swaps, drops, and time off).

Save 8 hours/week by scheduling with When I Work Sign up and schedule your employees for free.

Google Drive: Using a spreadsheet or a Google Doc, you can create a schedule in the cloud and share it with your employees. Set it to read only for them, and use the various features (comments, notes, etc.) to help with communication. Google spreadsheets, for example, will send an email to a person if you mention them in a comment using their handle. You can also notify everyone who has access to your online schedule when changes are made to a document. Employees can use the mobile app for Drive to monitor the schedule, as well as their computer. While it's not a high-tech solution, it is simple, free, and something you can do right now to create more accessibility for all of your employees.

Windows OneDrive: Similar to Google Drive, you can create your spreadsheet or document in the cloud and give specific employees access to it. Employees can use the mobile app or any web browser to check the schedule.

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Scheduling problems lead to unhappy employees and, ultimately, unhappy customers. You want neither, because both are costly to replace when they leave. With scheduling, flexibility, communication, and understanding are the key to keeping everyone happy.

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8 Ways to Make Scheduling Easier at Your Business

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You have employees that are juggling school, families, or additional jobs, and you are trying to juggle all of that in your employee schedule. It's not easy, and it's a serious enough topic that the U.S. Congress took to creating legislation to govern it through "The Schedules That Work Act."

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Netflix's plan to get the entire world watching 

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Netflix's plan to get the entire world watching 

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Discusses the challenges and cultural gaps that they will encounter. They plan to think global, but act local.

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Inside Netflix's plan to get the entire world watching

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Yale Insights- What is the Future of Globalization?

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Yale Insights- What is the Future of Globalization?

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This is a fun and interesting read! Faculty members from business schools across the world answer the question "What is the future of globalization?" The answers were overall positive.

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The responses to the above questions-written by faculty members from business schools in Beijing, London, Berkeley, Lagos, and many more economic centers around the world-provide a portrait of a world in flux, and the challenges for management education in a turbulent financial, political, and social landscape. Click the headlines to read the full article by each professor on Global Network Perspectives.

Juan Antonio Enciso González, Director, MBA in Global Business & Strategy, EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey

"We need to remember that changes in a global supply do not come about from one day to the next; it might take years before a company can reconfigure its sourcing, manufacturing process, logistics planning, and so on."

Guilherme Casarões, Professor of International Relations at the School of Advertising and Marketing (ESPM) and Fundação Getúlio Vargas (EAESP/FGV)

"As societies become ever more polarized and the risks of great-power conflict rise to unprecedented levels since the end of the Cold War, we have to look closely at the lessons taught by history so as never to forget them."

Kristiana Raube, Executive Director of the Institute for Business & Social Impact, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley

"Taking advantage of interconnected and complex global markets, we can bring together diverse viewpoints and approaches to create strategic business models that will make people around the world more prosperous and self-sufficient, particularly if they have the training and education to compete in a new global economy."

Ryan Schill, Carazo Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of Latin American Center for Entrepreneurs, INCAE Business School

"Perhaps this new necessary reliance on technological versions of interconnectedness will actually hasten development and economic advancement in ways that would not have otherwise been possible."

Danielle van Jaarsveld E.D.MacPhee Chair in Management, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia

"​Another significant challenge is how to develop a workforce with a productive mix of employment relationships (e.g., temporary, independent contractor, full-time) that can meet the needs of the organization while at the same time remaining flexible enough to adjust to market changes and disruptive technology."

Robert J. Shiller, Sterling Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, and Professor of Finance and Fellow at the International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management

"The world today is increasingly polarized into locals versus cosmopolitans. My concerns about our college and graduate school education today is that we are further developing a sense of cosmopolitan community for some people, excluding others."

Jamil Paolo S. Francisco, Director of the AIM Rizalino S. Navarro Policy Center for Competitiveness, Asian Institute of Management

"The success of ASEAN integration lies on continuing to maximize the gains of international trade and finance while ensuring that the rapid development that the region has been known for remains inclusive."

Zhiwen Yin, Associate Professor, Department of Management Science, School of Management, Fudan University

"China is one of the main beneficiaries of globalization. Given this, I believe that China is going to further promote the globalization process, and to undertake more international obligations."

Guolin Shen, Associate Professor, Fudan University

"It will be the most difficult task of Chinese globalization to define and promote core values that can be accepted and embraced by Chinese people and the world at large."

Kazuo Ichijo, Dean and Professor, Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University

"We educate our students so that they will be a bridge between two confronting concepts such as East and West, Large and Small, Global and Local, Old and New, Practice and Theory, Cooperation and Competition, and Business and Society without denouncing or ignoring the other in the age of Great Connection."

Jin Suk Park, Assistant Professor, Hitotsubashi University ICS

"The globalization of one country's product is the start of localization in a regional market; then the localized product will be sold globally."

Tish Robinson, Associate Professor, Organizational Behavior and Methodology, Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy

"Our MBA program represents more than 20 nationalities, and team coaching, cross-cultural conflict mediation, and facilitation skills have proved effective in empowering diverse teams in our various team projects."

Edwin L.-C. Lai Professor of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

"Developing countries such as China-especially in the early stage of China's reform in the 1980s and '90s-benefit a lot from participating in the global value chain."

Rupa Chanda, RBI Chair Professor in Economics, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

"Although India is less integrated than many other countries in the region and thus may not be as adversely affected by de-globalization as others, it still needs an open global economic order in terms of movement of goods, capital, technology, ideas, and people to sustain and improve its growth prospects."

Bernard Yeung, Dean and Stephen Riady Distinguished Professor in Finance and Strategic Management, NUS Business School

"A recent government report, compiled by a panel of ministers and industry representatives, set out a vision of Singapore's place in the future economy. It sets out the state's role as being to expand market connectivity, investing in national capabilities, and enabling the scale and scope of their applications and collaborations with other economies."

Majid Ghorbani, Assistant Professor, School of Business, Renmin University of China

"The forces resistant to globalization can only change the former converging nature of this phenomenon to divergence and more multipolarity."

Harryadin Mahardika, Director of Master of Management (MBA) Program, University of Indonesia Faculty of Economics

"As more disruptive innovations continue to enter the market, regulators should quickly offer solutions to address structural socioeconomic changes that affect large numbers of people."

Guillermo Baquero, Associate Professor and Faculty Lead of the Master's in Management Program, ESMT Berlin

"The risk for Germany remains the continued reliance on its traditional manufacturing sector, given the increasing competitive pressure from manufacturing industries in emerging economies."

Jeremy Ghez, Professor of Economics and International Affairs, HEC Paris

"T​ake European entrepreneurs: in a connected yet fragmented world, it will be up to them to truly leverage the 'made in Europe' label by considering what makes their know-how and their products truly unique on the world stage."

Gayle Allard, Professor of Economics, IE Business School

"Governments have the tools: unemployment benefits, relocation assistance, retraining, subsidies to low-wage jobs, tax systems that reduce inequality."

Stéphane Girod, Professor Of Strategy And International Business, IMD

"Collectively, the world is three times richer than it was in 1990, but there have been a lot of losers in globalization. Going forward, it's all going to depend on how we deal with those growing inequalities, in the Western world in particular."

Erin Meyer, Senior Affiliate Professor, Organisational Behaviour, INSEAD

"Unless you know how to decode other cultures and bridge cultural gaps, you are vulnerable to inefficiency, with teams unable to work together and deals that fall apart."

Jean Dermine, Professor of Banking and Finance, INSEAD

"If hundreds of million of jobs have been created in emerging markets in the past thirty years, one cannot deny that, in OECD countries, part of the population, mostly unqualified, have not benefited in terms of growth in real income."

Vinika D. Rao, Executive Director, Emerging Markets Institute, INSEAD

"Factors such as diversity of the student base, leading to the creation of international networks; access to a supportive global alumni; a strong base of recruiters from multiple countries; and multiple global campuses become important differentiators."

Franklin Ngwu, Lecturer, Strategy, Finance and Risk Management, Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University

"The features of Nigeria-a big, oil-producing country with the second-largest economy and highest population in Africa-further implies that the economy is highly linked to the forces of globalization."

Ogechi Adeola, Department of Marketing, Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University

"Accepting this trend, not fighting it, may be the best path toward expanding technological and scientific knowledge, growing the economy, and promoting cultural development in Nigeria and throughout Africa."

Veronica Rappoport, Associate Professor, Managerial Economics and Strategy Group, Department of Management, London School of Economics

"We sit at the center of the global city of London, at the heart of a leading social science institution, which gives our graduates both an academic perspective and a real-world context in the social, economic and political environment."

Peter Tufano, Dean, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

"While politicians battle over the free flow of trade, we must make sure that students and ideas can move easily across borders. One of the reasons why we were thrilled to join the Global Network earlier this year is because we want to recommit, publicly, to these free flows."

Miriam Erez, Professor of Behavioral Science and Management, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

"Globalization creates tension between the local and the global, and individuals and organizations are learning to live in this duality-and to maintain their competitive and sustainable advantage in this global competition."

Mark Pagell, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School

"A local supply chain is more agile, easier to control, has a smaller footprint, and is not much more expensive than a global one; hence, in the future, goods production is bound to be more localized."

John Cassidy, Assistant Professor of International Business, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business

"Ireland has received a lot of political support from the U.K. with a similar Washington consensus free trade philosophy, yet the union has been dominated by Germany and France. The absence of the U.K. may over time dilute our leverage."

Horman Chitonge, Associate Professor of African Studies, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town

"If there is one area where the global leadership deficit is more apparent, it is around the politics of global climate change."

John Luiz, Professor, University of cape town Graduate School of Business

"African countries have often been at the receiving end of the nasty consequences of globalization, but at the same time, it is the opportunities within the global economy that will provide them with the ability to grow into middle- and high-income status."

Joshua Yindenaba Abor, Professor of Finance and Dean; Elikplimi Komla Agbloyor, Lecturer in Finance; Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako, Lecturer; Gordon Abekah-Nkrumah, Senior Lecturer, Public Administration and Health Services Management, University of Ghana Business School

"There will be the need to strengthen institutions, develop stronger financial markets, promote tighter and smarter economic integration, and, most important, develop a core cadre of human capital with global perspectives."

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The responses to the above questions-written by faculty members from business schools in Beijing, London, Berkeley, Lagos, and many more economic centers around the world-provide a portrait of a world in flux, and the challenges for management education in a turbulent financial, political, and social landscape.

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Higher quality suppliers and higher quality talent are encouraging small companies to expand borders. As technology improves small business owners are gaining easier access to global resources. Karen Visnick says "Going global is no longer an option for successful small-and medium sized businesses- it's a strategic imperative."

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Small businesses are breaking barriers and going international, a new study by foreign exchange company USForex has found.

The survey shows 58 percent of small businesses already have international customers, while 72 percent plan to grow their international customer base by 2017. About 96 percent of these small businesses, in fact, are confident about conducting business abroad.

" Going global is no longer an option for successful small- and medium-sized businesses - it's a strategic imperative," said Karin Visnick, head of North America, USForex.

Why are Small Businesses Going Global?

According to the survey, factors such as access to higher quality suppliers or vendors (43 percent) and higher quality talent (42 percent) are encouraging businesses to expand across borders. Cheaper access to suppliers or vendors (41 percent) and cheaper talent (28 percent) are other prominent factors driving this trend.

Karin Visnick explained, "Facing domestic uncertainty - political and economic - SMBs are feeling the pinch here at home. New technology and tools are putting global talent, suppliers and markets within reach of businesses that just a few years ago would have never thought to look beyond U.S. borders."

Challenges Facing Businesses

Although businesses are tempted to expand their global presence, there are challenges that dissuade some companies from going global.

According to the survey, small businesses feel the U.S. presidential election and global terrorism are the biggest factors that may impact their international business. Respondents also feel international market conditions, lack of understanding of local best practices and fees charged to sell overseas are key concerns.

"It's clear that SMBs are optimistic and eager to expand their business across U.S. borders, though slightly cautious about local business conditions and the impact of major global events," noted David Nicholls, head of payment solutions, USForex.

"Among our own customers we're experiencing an increasing number of businesses that are seeking out the proper tools and guidance they need to navigate the changing global business landscape, and ultimately make their international expansion a successful one."

About the USForex Survey

For the study, USForex partnered with Researchscape and surveyed more than 300 U.S. small-to-medium sized businesses over the course of two weeks.

USForex is a provider of online alternatives to existing currency exchange services.

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58 Percent of Small Businesses Already Have International Customers, Survey Finds

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Small businesses are breaking barriers and going international, a new study by foreign exchange company USForex has found. The survey shows 58 percent of small businesses already have international customers, while 72 percent plan to grow their international customer base by 2017. About 96 percent of these small businesses, in fact, are confident about conducting business abroad.

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Biggest pitfalls with diversity in the workplace

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Biggest pitfalls with diversity in the workplace

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1. Managers and employees don't recognize that bias training doesn't lead to more inclusion in the workplace
2.Diversity can't be an afterthought and managers need to take this seriously
3. Companies aren't reaching out minority programs to help diversify the organization

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A lot of tech companies say they want to make progress on diversity and inclusion. Code2040, a nonprofit that gets its name from the year people of color are projected to be the majority of the U.S. population, argues that just saying that isn't enough. Businesses need to act.

"It's often positioned as an add-on," Code2040 CEO Laura Weidman Powers said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. "What really needs to be the case is to change the core of what you're doing. We're not saying, 'Keep hiring the way you're hiring and also do this diversity thing on the side.' [We are saying,] 'You need to change the way you hire in order to be more inclusive.'"

You can listen to Recode Decode on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

Code2040 focuses specifically on "underrepresented minorities" - black and Latino/Latina students who have 18 percent of computer science degrees but only three percent to five percent of the jobs in Silicon Valley.

Powers said that since the nonprofit launched in 2012, Code2040 has found more and more support for its annual "fellows program," which charges companies to connect them with talented minorities whom they might otherwise overlook. This summer, it will place more than 100 black and Latino students in tech offices.

But there's still a long way to go. She said managers and employees, even the ones who mean well, often fall into traps that set everyone back - for example: "unconscious bias" training that doesn't give attendees the ability to apply anything they learn.

"Talking about unconscious or implicit bias can seem to let people off the hook," Powers said. "It's been shown if you do unconscious bias training and it's like, 'Hey, everybody's got bias,' then the takeaway is, 'Oh, phew, it's not me! It's just humans because we need to learn how to be scared of snakes so you make assumptions!' You can get farther away from making progress."

"Folks go to our trainings, they go back to their desks, and there's half a dozen black and Latino interns who are working there," she added. "They actually get a chance to see: 'How inclusive is my culture? What is the experience of these individuals coming through?' That makes a big difference, putting a face to the work and actually having a chance to build those skills."

If you like this show, you should also sample our other podcasts:

Recode Media with Peter Kafka features no-nonsense conversations with the smartest and most interesting people in the media world, with new episodes every Thursday. Use these links to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

And Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, including the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.

If you like what we're doing, please write a review on Apple Podcasts - and if you don't, just tweet-strafe Kara.

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This is what you get wrong when you talk about diversity in the workplace

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A lot of tech companies say they want to make progress on diversity and inclusion. Code2040, a nonprofit that gets its name from the year people of color are projected to be the majority of the U.S. population, argues that just saying that isn't enough. Businesses need to act.

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The Myriad Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace

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The Myriad Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace

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Benefits include extra insights, experiences, worldviews, more innovation, higher performance, more creative, better at solving problems.

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In the age of technology, the world has become smaller. Smartphones and other mobile devices make it possible to interact with customers, vendors or employees on the other side of the world anytime of day or night. As businesses and individual communities have become more globalized, most companies are operating within a diverse marketplace.

You may be doing business with customers and vendors around the world, but even if you're not, chances are that the demographics in your neighborhood are also becoming more diverse.
Related: Diversity Defines Our Global Economy. Do You Speak the Language?
That's why it's more important than ever before to build a diverse staff for your business: Recruiting and retaining a diverse, inclusive group of employees lets your company reflect the world around you and makes your team better able to develop fresh ideas that will meet the needs of the whole marketplace.

To be profitable in a diverse, globalized marketplace, savvy companies are making efforts to look more like the community around them. If you employ only those who identify with a small portion of the market, you just don't have access to the insights, experiences and worldviews of the full marketplace.

When planning to expand your staff, make an effort to recruit a diverse set of employees to help your company. Here are five key benefits of diversity in today's workplaces:

1. Drive innovation.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Melinda Marshall and Laura Sherbin identified and highlighted companies with what they called "two-dimensional diversity." The leaders of these businesses had at least three inherent diversity traits and three acquired ones (culled from experience).

"Working in another country can help you appreciate cultural differences, for example, while selling to female consumers can give you gender smarts," the authors wrote.

Using new research, Hewlett and her co-authors found that these firms performed better in business, explaining, "By correlating diversity in leadership with market outcomes as reported by respondents, we learned that companies with 2-D diversity out-innovate and out-perform others."

2. Increase creativity.

Teams that include workers from different backgrounds and experiences can come up with more creative ideas and methods of solving problems.

"The more your network includes individuals from different cultural backgrounds, the more you will be creatively stimulated by different ideas and perspectives," according to research by Harvard Business School professor Roy Y.J. Chua. "Importantly, these ideas do not necessarily come from the network members who are culturally different from you."
Related: How to Leverage Boardroom Diversity for Greater Success
3. Make recruitment easier.

Competition is fierce for the most talented workers. Research indicates that diversity can help you recruit top talent. In a recent Glassdoor survey, two-thirds of the people polled said that diversity was important to them when evaluating companies and job offers.

No matter whom you're recruiting a position, the data says they're likely to welcome joinining a diverse workforce. In addition, if you make an effort to recruit a wide variety of candidates -- not just those who went to the local college or who match the ethnicity of the rest of your staff -- your company is more likely to hire the best and the brightest in the labor market.

Talent is vital to improving the bottom line in an increasingly competitive economy, so you'll do your company a favor by selecting employees from the largest and most diverse set of candidates. And with a diverse workforce, your candidates will be more likely to accept your job offers. It's a beneficial cycle.

4. Avoid high turnover.

According to the Labor Department, more people are quitting their jobs now than they have since 2008, meaning retention should be top of mind for managers. The Glassdoor survey found that 57 percent of people surveyed think their company should be doing more to increase diversity in its workforce.

Most business owners know that when an employee leaves, finding and hiring a replacement can be an extremely expensive process. In many cases, a lack of diversity can create an unintentionally hostile environment for those who feel like they don't fit in.

With the current job market bouncing back, many people are now considering their options in a way they haven't in six years. Rather than dealing with turnover rates that could become increasingly high as communities become more inclusive, make a commitment to creating a diverse and discrimination-free work environment at your company.

Successful companies create internal programs, resources and networking groups after listening to employees and supporting efforts they're interested in. This not only supports diversity but has the added benefit of creating a tighter, more invested community among the workforce.

5. Capture more of the market.

When your workplace is home to a diverse group of individuals from different backgrounds and experiences, your company can more effectively market to all groups of consumers, from a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds, men and women, older and younger adults and those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Building a diverse workplace can help you increase your company's market share.
Related: Richard Branson on Why Diversity Is an Advantage

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The Myriad Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace

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In the age of technology, the world has become smaller. Smartphones and other mobile devices make it possible to interact with customers, vendors or employees on the other side of the world anytime of day or night. As businesses and individual communities have become more globalized, most companies are operating within a diverse marketplace.

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Diversity Doesn't Stick Without Inclusion 

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Diversity Doesn't Stick Without Inclusion 

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What can managers and top execs do internally to understand the cause and effect of relationships? The data from outside surveys need to be analyzed.

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Leaders have long recognized that a diverse workforce of women, people of color, and LGBT individuals confers a competitive edge in terms of selling products or services to diverse end users. Yet a stark gap persists between recognizing the leadership behaviors that unlock this capability and actually practicing them.

Part of the problem is that "diversity" and "inclusion" are so often lumped together that they're assumed to be the same thing. But that's just not the case. In the context of the workplace, diversity equals representation. Without inclusion, however, the crucial connections that attract diverse talent, encourage their participation, foster innovation, and lead to business growth won't happen. As noted diversity advocate Vernā Myers puts it, "Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance."

Numerous studies show that diversity alone doesn't drive inclusion. In fact, without inclusion there's often a diversity backlash. Our research on sponsorship and multicultural professionals, for example, shows that although 41% of senior-level African-Americans, 20% of senior-level Asians, and 18% of senior-level Hispanics feel obligated to sponsor employees of the same gender or ethnicity as themselves (for Caucasians the number is 7%), they hesitate to take action. Sponsors of color, especially at the top, are hobbled by the perception of giving special treatment to protégés of color and the concern that protégés might not "make the grade." The result: Just 18% of Asians, 21% of African-Americans, and 25% of Hispanics step up to sponsorship (and 27% of Caucasians).

Another difficulty in solving the issue is data. It's easy to measure diversity: It's a simple matter of headcount. But quantifying feelings of inclusion can be dicey. Understanding that narrative along with the numbers is what really draws the picture for companies.

For example, we worked with a Chile-based firm that would seem to have no problems with diversity. After all, one of their most valued employees is an indigenous Peruvian, a man who is respected, well-paid, and included in the leadership team's decision-making discussions. Yet in a one-on-one interview he confided that he saw no future for his ambitions at that firm. "I know they value me," he said, "but I am an indigenous person, and they are white, legacy, and Spanish. They will never make me a partner, because of my color and background." Conventional measures would never flag this talented man for a flight risk; it's up to the narrative to tell the tale.

At the Center for Talent Innovation, we have constructed a unique, robust framework for measuring the things that matter. Our methodology relies on three streams of information: wide-ranging, anonymous, quantitative surveys provide the statistical foundation; Insights In-Depth sessions, a proprietary web-based tool used to conduct facilitated focus groups within companies, provide the stories to flesh out the statistics; and one-on-one interviews enrich the statistics with deeper meaning. Within that framework our research has uncovered four levers that drive inclusion.

Inclusive leaders. This kind of leadership is a conglomeration of six behaviors: ensuring that team members speak up and are heard; making it safe to propose novel ideas; empowering team members to make decisions; taking advice and implementing feedback; giving actionable feedback; and sharing credit for team success. Of employees who report that their team leader has at least three of these traits, 87% say they feel welcome and included in their team, 87% say they feel free to express their views and opinions, and 74% say they feel that their ideas are heard and recognized. For respondents who reported that their team leader has none of these traits, those percentages dropped to 51%, 46%, and 37%, respectively.

Authenticity. It's not surprising that everyone expends energy by repressing parts of their persona in the workplace in some way. But according to our research, 37% of African-Americans and Hispanics and 45% of Asians say they "need to compromise their authenticity" to conform to their company's standards of demeanor or style. Our research on women in the science, engineering, and technology industries shows that, regardless of gender, acting "like a man" can provide an advantage in becoming a leader in these fields. What a waste of employees' energy, let alone their employers' diversity dollars.

Networking and visibility. For women and people of color, the key to rising above a playing field that remains stubbornly uneven is sponsorship. A sponsor is a senior-level leader who elevates their protégé's visibility within the corridors of power, advocates for key assignments and promotions for them, and puts their reputation on the line for the protégé's advancement. For those who feel marginalized by their gender, ethnicity, age, sexual identity, or educational and economic background, sponsorship is particularly crucial in invigorating ambition and driving engagement. Having a sponsor increases the likelihood of being satisfied with the rate of career advancement. Conversely, lack of sponsorship increases someone's likelihood of quitting within a year.

Clear career paths. For women, LGBT individuals, and people of color, the map to career success is murky. Our research shows that 45% of women off-ramp to take care of children, although elder care is increasingly pulling women off the career track, with 24% leaving to care for aging relatives. But a significant number of women also feel pushed off the ladder: 29% say their career isn't satisfying, and 23% feel stalled in their careers. Comments from women in focus groups note that they're frustrated by being passed over for high-profile assignments, and they have a general sense of missing out on the right opportunities. LGBT individuals and people of color, too, struggle to name a simple solution to open up a blocked career path. Ironically, it's usually the majority group that presumes to identify the reason these people aren't advancing, which too often results in the problem being oversimplified.

Companies should start from the simple but fundamental understanding that there are different perspectives, each of them valuable, and work to explore and identify the range of barriers holding these individuals back. Organizations can then formulate plans and programs that offer options and provide signposts that help women, LGBT people, and people of color find the path that's right for where they are in their lives and careers.

Focusing on these four levers can elicit real change. Our research finds that employees with inclusive managers are 1.3 times more likely to feel that their innovative potential is unlocked. Employees who are able to bring their whole selves to work are 42% less likely to say they intend to leave their job within a year. Those with sponsors are 62% more likely to have asked for and have received a promotion. And 69% of women who off-ramp would have stayed at their companies if they'd had flexible work options.

Diversity without inclusion is a story of missed opportunities, of employees so used to being overlooked that they no longer share ideas and insights. But diversity with inclusion provides a potent mix of talent retention and engagement.

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Diversity Doesn't Stick Without Inclusion

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Leaders have long recognized that a diverse workforce of women, people of color, and LGBT individuals confers a competitive edge in terms of selling products or services to diverse end users. Yet a stark gap persists between recognizing the leadership behaviors that unlock this capability and actually practicing them.

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Author of: Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

I think this is something to keep in mind when developing human skills. A great management team fully understands the company and maintains a healthy communication style. Sinek is saying that that the middle managers are only trying to please the higher ups and those at the bottom of the totem pole do not feel like an important part of the company.

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I wanted to save this to read more about the woman who beat Rodney Adkins in the position as CEO for IBM

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At the massive IBM InterConnect conference this week, over 20,000 of Big Blue's fans packed Las Vegas's Mandalay Bay to hear about the company's transformative, three-pronged strategy.

The bet-the-company story for IBM: Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain.

While IBM still maintains numerous other business read "

President-elect Donald Trump is beefing up his cadre of CEO-advisors: the incoming commander-in-chief said Wednesday that he is adding three more of America's most prominent chief executives to an economic forum dedicated to job creation and productivity.

The Trump transition team announced read "

By Ryan Mac and Matt Drange
Donald Trump's meeting with tech industry leaders on Wednesday is expected to focus heavily on the creation of jobs in the United States, an issue that the President-elect highlighted repeatedly during the campaign. The conversation, which is set for 2:00 p.m. in New York's Trump read "

President-elect Donald J. Trump will be bringing the CEOs of America's biggest corporations, banks and investment firms to the White House to regularly hear out their perspectives on how to create jobs and improve growth for the U.S. economy.

Trump has created what he calls the 'President's Strategic and Policy Forum,' which will consist read "

Since its founding in 1863, Zurich-based Swiss Re has seen many changes to its business and the world at large. Today's turbulent business environment, however, is forcing Swiss Re to change faster and more comprehensively than any other time in its history.

I recently interviewed Rainer Baumann, CIO of Information and Managing read "

Despite pressure from Asia, American companies dominate the tech scene. Forty-nine of the world's largest tech companies in 2017 hail from the United States.

took the top spot in the tech group weeks after shares hit a new record high, reaching over $147 per share for the first time on May 2 despite disappointing iPhone sales. For the read "

Given the turbulent, even frothy environment for disruptive digital technologies, one novel entrant promises to be among the frothiest: blockchain. The secure distributed ledger technology behind Bitcoin, blockchain has exploded out of the realm of the dubious cryptocurrency into a hype-driven category of its own.

VC read "

Renewed Competition in HPC Will Enable Workload Optimization
Intel has enjoyed a dominant position in High Performance Computing (HPC) processors for nearly a decade now, with only IBM POWER offering a viable CPU alternative, since Advanced Micro Devices effectively, albeit perhaps unintentionally, exited the market in read "

Deep Instinct co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Eli David says the day when a computer is as smart as a human, or smarter, may be a lot closer than many think.

AI programs, "are on an accelerating path of growth in their capabilities. In the near future, they will reach near human or superhuman capabilities," David told me in an read "

On the May 8th edition of Closing Bell on CNBC, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital, created quite a stir in enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) circles, when he took on IBM Watson, Big Blue's AI platform.

"Watson is a joke, just to be completely honest," Palihapitiya said. "I read "

In last week's article Is IBM Watson A 'Joke'?, I quoted Social Capital CEO and founder Chamath Palihapitiya bad-mouthing Big Blue on the May 8th edition of Closing Bell on CNBC.

Palihapitiya's didn't heap his scorn solely on IBM, however. Oracle was also in his gun sights. "Oracle...is not a business that is read "

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At the massive IBM InterConnect conference this week, over 20,000 of Big Blue's fans packed Las Vegas's Mandalay Bay to hear about the company's transformative, three-pronged strategy. The bet-the-company story for IBM: Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain.

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I found this an interesting article because many of my peers answered in the discussion board that Job's would have been a difficult boss to work considering his lack of human skills. This article takes a closer look at that. In the end it says that because of Job's results with Apple he is perceived as motivational but had his life's work plummeted he would probably be remembered as abusive.

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Steve Jobs was famously fired from his own company in 1985 after a clash with John Sculley, Apple's CEO at the time. He was criticized for being headstrong and having tunnel vision with his then pet project, the Macintosh, amid disappointing sales and a plummeting stock price.

This moment in Jobs's life, which was depicted in the 2015 Aaron Sorkin Steve Jobs biopic, has been cited as an example of his belligerent management style. But according to new research, that behavior might not have led to his ouster if Apple's stock price hadn't plunged. The new thinking is, if the company was doing well, nobody would have cared about his management style--and, on the contrary, they might even have praised him.

Robert Bies, a professor of management at Georgetown University who has been researching work practices, shared his findings with The Wall Street Journal.

"Leaders are complex figures sending multiple signals at the same time," Bies told the WSJ. "With Jobs, there is plenty of evidence of abuse. But you can see that he's a motivator. He was pushing the envelope for excellence in products."

Still, there's a fine line between motivation and abuse.

Bies states a manager could be viewed as an abuser or a motivator depending on social contextual factors, such as the success rate of a manager's team.

An aggressive and demanding manager could be perceived as an inspirational leader if the results are sound. If the tide turns, however, that same leadership style could be identified as abusive. Think back on Jobs's own management style. Even though it was consistent throughout his career--yelling at employees and insisting on his particular definition of perfection--it was more tolerated (even celebrated) when Apple thrived.

Other factors to consider include employees' level of trust in their leaders, peer opinions, and the narrative used to rationalize a manager's motives.

Bies also stresses that performance feedback from an employer carries a hefty weight in the relationship. Even when the review is negative or delivered in a very loud manner, the manager could still be viewed as a "master motivator" if it pushes an employee to excellence.

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Steve Jobs's Management Style: Abusive or Motivational?

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Steve Jobs was famously fired from his own company in 1985 after a clash with John Sculley, Apple's CEO at the time. He was criticized for being headstrong and having tunnel vision with his then pet project, the Macintosh, amid disappointing sales and a plummeting stock price.