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Hotel Management Agreements: The new hotel product that won’t be announced at IHIF this year…
Similar to having a scare with change in the company, this updated hotel management contract is something to consider.

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Hotel Management Agreements: The new hotel product that won't be announced at IHIF this year... | Lexology

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As the industry prepares for the IHIF conference in Berlin, Stephen Greyling gives his views Hotel Management Agreements and why they are no longer...

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Focus On Change Management To Aid Technology Adoption
With technological advancements on the rise and affecting companies, many see this as an unnecessary change, and oftentimes fight it. To prevent employees from fighting change, they need only focus on the data they get from the work and whether or not it helps the company reach their standards, and not on the appearance or selling points.

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Focus On Change Management To Aid Technology Adoption

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Your employees will always resist technology change. Change tends to bring fear and uncertainty. To overcome fear and make your installation a success, focus on implementation, change management, and providing immediate benefits to users.

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Agent Evan Dick Leaves CAA To Launch Production & Management Company, Inks First-Look Deal With Love Productions
A new company that specializes in production and management, Exit 39 is expected to launch soon. The company works to aid in developing movies and films that require managing skills to lead the projects to success, much like the need companies have for managers to assist in production.

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Veteran unscripted TV and sports broadcasting agent Evan Dick has exited CAA to launch Exit 39, a production and management company, which has signed a first-look development deal with The Great British Bake Off producers Love Productions. Dick is keeping his ties with CAA, which will rep Exit 39 and will share clients with him, including ESPN's Jemele Hill, whom Dick repped at the agency and whom he will now manage via Exit 39.

Under the pact with Love Prods., Exit 39, named after the exit off the Long Island expressway where Dick grew up, will focus on the development of documentary films and series with a specialized focus on sports, as well as the development of formats for primetime broadcast and cable.

"We are very excited about the opportunity to work with Evan and Exit 39," Love's co-founder Richard McKerrow and Love Productions USA head Kevin Bartel said in a joint statement. "There is a shared passion for ground breaking non-fiction programming and a desire to further deliver on the mission to stay sharp as one of the global leaders in producing premium content,"

Since moving from ICM to CAA in 2012, Evan established himself as a leading sports broadcasting and unscripted talent packaging rep, with clients such as ESPN's Hill, Chauncey Billups, Pablo Torre, Cassidy Hubbarth and others. He brokered many primetime broadcast network talent deals, including Alec Baldwin as the host of Match Game and Alfonso Ribeiro on America's Funniest Home Videos, both airing on ABC. Evan also represented sports production company DLP Media Group and sold several sports-related documentaries and docuseries, including a number of ESPN 30 For 30 films such as The Fab Five, One & Done / Ben Simmons (Showtime Sports) and On Freddie Roach (HBO Sports).

"I'm thrilled to be partnering with Love Productions. Richard and Kevin have impeccable taste and a forward-thinking approach to producing premium content," Dick said. "I've been honored to share the past six years with amazing colleagues at CAA and I'm excited to continue working together in this next chapter."

Love Productions also is repped by CAA.

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Agent Evan Dick Leaves CAA To Launch Production & Management Company, Inks First-Look Deal With Love Productions

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Veteran unscripted TV and sports broadcasting agent Evan Dick has exited CAA to launch Exit 39, a production and management company, which has signed a first-look development deal with The Great British Bake Off producers Love Productions.

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Purdue professional development program to enhance talent-management skills
The “Managing Talent to Win” workshop is hosted by Purdue University. The workshop helps to build relationships while participating, and honing leadership skills and the managerial capacity in a future leadership role (manager, executive).

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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University's Center for Food and Agricultural Business will present the Managing Talent to Win workshop April 3-5 in West Lafayette.

This workshop helps participants further improve their organizations through a series of talent management topics ranging from acquisition to succession planning. Participants will learn how to identify and prepare the right people for critical positions, leverage strategic employee talent, build relationships and enhance leadership and managerial capabilities.

"Given that an organization is a collection of people working together to create value, the only real way for organizations to improve and compete more effectively is for them to continue improving their people resources," said Allan Gray, center director and professor of agricultural economics. "Managing Talent to Win gives participants insights to identify what capabilities their organizations need most and how, as managers, they can help employees get, manage and continuously improve these capabilities."

In addition to Gray, program presenters are Michael Gunderson, center associate director and associate professor, and Keith Halperin, senior client partner with Korn Ferry Hay Group. Halperin specializes in designing and conducting programs to enhance the leadership skills of managers and executive.

Program topics include aligning talent with strategic capabilities, situational leadership, performance management and execution, managing critical conversations and best practices for developing talent. Participants will examine recruiting and retaining the right kind of talent for their organizations, encouraging employee development, the science of performance management, assessing relationships and holding effective conversations.

This program is especially valuable for middle and upper-level managers new to their managerial roles, in addition to middle and upper-level managers who are looking to advance their management capabilities. Past participants have said that they have found it easier to implement the program takeaways in the workplace when they attended with other team members. Group or individual registrations are welcome.

The program early bird rate is $2,595 per person through February 28. After that, the program is $2,795 per person. Contact Betty Jones-Bliss at bettyso@purdue.edu for team pricing. Learn more and register at http://agribusiness.purdue.edu/seminars-and-events/managing-talent-to-win.

Writer: Rebecca Frazier, frazie16@purdue.edu

Media contact: Jennifer Stewart-Burton, 765-496-6032, jsstewar@purdue.edu

Source: Allan Gray, 765-494-4323, gray@purdue.edu

Agricultural Communications: (765) 494-8415;
Darrin Pack, Manager/Media Relations and Public Information, dpack@purdue.edu
Agriculture News Page

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Purdue professional development program to enhance talent-management skills

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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University's Center for Food and Agricultural Business will present the Managing Talent to Win workshop April 3-5 in West Lafayette. This workshop helps participants further improve their organizations through a series of talent management topics ranging from acquisition to succession planning.

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Ten Skills Every Manager Needs -- But 90% Of Managers Lack
Multiple skills are needed to be a successful manager, but managers may lack without knowing. From giving and taking feedback for employees, understanding the placement one would have in the organization, even acting like a human (which they are), these tips can be very useful.

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Dear Liz,

I'm the Training Manager in a great firm. I have developed and delivered customer service training, communication skills training and several other courses, but now I have a new and bigger challenge. My CEO asked me to develop an in-house leadership development program. I'm very excited about it.

What are the principal leadership skills I should focus on in my new program? You are my favorite thought leader so your opinions are important to me.

Thanks Liz!

Yours,

Magda

Dear Magda,

What a great opportunity! I am excited for you.

Here are ten skills that every leader needs, but sadly most leaders don't possess. Many leadership development programs don't even touch on these skills.

Traditional leadership training teaches people how to manage - but not how to lead, how to build trust or how to be human with employees. It's time for a new approach!
Ten Skills Every Manager Needs
1. Every manager needs to be able to ask for and take in feedback from their employees - without becoming defensive. This is a fundamental leadership skill that most managers lack. They are used to calling the shots, not asking their employees how they could get better at their jobs.

2. Every manager must develop the ability to take an employee's perspective and see things from the employee's point of view.

3. Every manager needs to understand how his or her function fits into the overall organization and how their business competes in its marketplace. Unfortunately, many managers have no idea how their organizations compete. They know a lot about their department but very little about the industry, the world or current events. That's a big problem!

4. Every manager needs to learn self-reflection. They need to notice their own fear reactions - for example, when their boss is upset with them or when they are upset with one of their employees. Until we can notice and temper our own fear (keeping in mind that anger is a fear reaction) we will never learn to be leaders!

5. Every manager needs to know how to acknowledge and reinforce employees - and how to avoid bashing and criticizing them when they make a mistake. True leaders accept their employees' mistakes as their own learning opportunities - after all, being a leader means taking responsibility for everything that happens in the department.

6. Every manager needs to learn to stand up for their teammates when a higher-up manager gives an order that isn't feasible or achievable. Leadership means facing fear and stepping through it, but this aspect of leadership gets short shrift in traditional leadership training. If you can't stand up for your employees when there's pressure on you to conform, you might be a supervisor - but you are not a leader.

7. Every manager needs to learn to manage his or her own career, completely apart from managing their department. We are all free agents now. We are all independent economic units. Leadership training can incorporate the idea of career self-determination and help managers develop their own long-term career plans, whether those plans keep them in the company that provided the training or take them far away from it!

8. Every manager needs to learn to communicate with people of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, religions, political stripes and personality types and must learn to be open to a wide range of perspectives. It takes patience and focus to step out of our traditional biases, but it is part of every leader's job to do so.

9. Every leader must learn how to build trust and community at work. Without trust, a department can't function the way it should. Too often, managers achieve results through fear - through threats, veiled or overt. That's the opposite of leadership!

10. Finally, every manager must learn to be human at work, especially when conditions are ripe for fear-based management tactics to creep in. When we lose our humanity at work, we are no longer leaders - we are functionaries and lackeys, doing what we're told out of fear of doing anything else.

I wish you all the best with your new leadership program. We can't wait to hear about your incredible results!

Yours,

Liz

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Ten Skills Every Manager Needs -- But 90% Of Managers Lack

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Dear Liz, I'm the Training Manager in a great firm. I have developed and delivered customer service training, communication skills training and several other courses, but now I have a new and bigger challenge. My CEO asked me to develop an in-house leadership development program. I'm very excited about it.

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WHY BUILDER 100 AND THE NEXT 100 MATTER
Recognition on the list of 100 helps companies grow and know what customers find appealing. With a mention on such a list, the rise in motivation is inevitable.

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Flexible Leadership Calls for Both Leadership and Management
Fusing leadership and management together to adapt to the new changes corporations are facing helps maintain the established sense of leading roles in the workforce.  Keeping this fusion is an advantage by helping to stay ahead in the competitive business environment. This also helps with motivation when a company is doing exceptionally well.

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There is a great deal of interest in the subject of leadership-the sheer number of books published on this topic is proof of this fact. However, despite the amount that has been written, there is still a controversy about the difference between leadership and management and whether one is more important than another.

For example, some academics and consultants believe the skills and personality traits required for management and leadership are fundamentally different or even incompatible and cannot occur in the same person.

Others contend that leadership and management are more akin to distinct processes or roles with different objectives. Basically, for these thinkers, the objective of management is to bring order and stability while the objective of leadership is to drive innovation and change.
Fusing Leadership and Management
Although these are both defensible points of view, our research on flexible adaptive leadership finds the distinctions to not be particularly helpful for either leaders/managers themselves or the HR professionals who are charged with developing leaders/managers.

Today's highly competitive and rapidly changing business environment requires that the traits and skills of both management and leadership must be able to coexist in employees at all levels of the organization. This is because in today's complex world, leaders/managers must be able to simultaneously attend to three factors that impact organizational performance:

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1. Efficiency-maintaining high levels of productivity and quality, minimizing costs, and producing/delivering products that are high quality in a timely manner;

2. Adaptation-responding in appropriate ways to threats and opportunities by taking action or finding ways to acquire necessary materials and resources; and

3. Talent-building trust and respect with, improving the knowledge/skills of, and providing motivation to employees to keep them committed to the organization.

While conventional wisdom contends that managers tend to be focused on efficiency, and leaders on adaptation, each group needs to possess both management and leadership skills if they are to successfully address all three factors that affect the organization's performance.

Strong management alone can create bureaucracy without purpose, but strong leadership alone can drive change that disrupts operations without any practical improvement . In addition, a lack of continuity and consistency can undermine an employee's ability to perform, while a focus on operations can limit a focus on inspiring employees to perform beyond expectations.

That's why organizations no longer have the luxury of developing one group of people who will be leaders and another group who will be managers; to be effective, managers must also lead, and leaders must also manage.
Creating Flexible Leadership
Flexible leaders often find that they must use skills from both the management and leadership disciplines. As such, many high-potential employees may also need to develop management skills and behaviors as well as leadership ones. This helps these leaders balance efficiency, adaptation, and motivating and engaging people as needed based on the demands and challenges the business is currently facing-while also avoiding clashes from conflicting goals.

Some of the competencies flexible leaders need to to achieve this balance and avoid trading off one against the other include:

1. Situational Awareness-understanding the current situation and how it impacts the business and the people working for it.

2. Systems Thinking-knowing how various business systems interact and anticipating the effects of changes to those systems on one another.

3. Self-Awareness-objectively analyzing one's own mental state and knowing how it affects their judgment.

4. Ability to Involve and Empower People at All Levels-motivating employees by making them a part of the process.

5. Encourage and Practice Leadership by Example-modeling desired behaviors to avoid setting a "double standard" that could negatively impact employee motivation.

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Flexible Leadership Calls for Both Leadership and Management

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There is a great deal of interest in the subject of leadership-the sheer number of books published on this topic is proof of this fact. However, despite the amount that has been written, there is still a controversy about the difference between leadership and management and whether one is more important than another.

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Acreaty Ghana launches human resource survey for banks in Ghana
Inside the country of Ghana, the survey for human resources in banks is created to help refine their skills and how they treat their employees to completely understand the correlation between the competitive behavior for banks and employee satisfaction.

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Business News of Tuesday, 13 February 2018

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Human Resource and business consulting experts, Acreaty Ghana, today launched their maiden human resource survey for the banking sector in a bid to fully understand the competitiveness of these banks based on employee satisfaction.

The survey is intended to also help banks assess themselves on how their treatment to employees affects their productivity and how best they could learn from competitors in improving employee satisfaction.

Speaking at the launch, Regional Managing Partner, Acreaty Ghana, Elsie Appau explained that the idea for the survey was birthed, after her outfit noticed the increasing rate at which employees in the banking sector, especially in West Africa, moved from one institution to the other in search of a more 'employee friendly' environment.

"We manage and operate one of the biggest job portals for the West Africa region and most often we see how people cross carpets from one bank to the other and also from one institution to the other. When you ask questions on why these sudden and rapid movements, people tell you sometimes it is not just about the pay but also how we are treated and how our banks or institution view our importance to their development", she said.

She added then that, "We said okay, Ghana at the moment has about 35 banks and counting and we seem to be one of the very first people to come up with the idea of conducting specific sector Human Resource survey to understand currently the competition within the banks as to how remuneration and rewards are well packaged and given to employees. We all know how important human beings are to the development of our various companies."

President of the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners (IHRMP), Dr. Edward Kwapong mentioned the need for banks to cooperate with Acreaty Ghana to provide accurate information in order to gain 'realistic and helpful' data.

Dr. Kwapong who doubles as CEO of Fair Wages and Salaries Commission said, "Banks see themselves as competitors and making information available to each other through such a survey will be hindered by the need for confidentiality required by your various management. This culture should not hinder the very good intentions if this bold initiative."

During a brief presentation on how the contents of the survey would look like, Head of Business and IT Consulting, Acreaty Ghana, Kwabena Adjekum noted that, "We all know that the ability of our individual banks to do what we want to do to be the topmost banks really depends on our ability to attract the best, retain them and also motivate them to give off their best. That is what we hoping to give out of this survey."

The Human Resources persons representing various banks who were present during the launch appreciated the idea of the survey indicating how helpful the results would be to their management adding that not only will it inform them of how to treat their employees going forward, but would also give them a fair idea of how their competitors are related with their workers.

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Acreaty Ghana launches human resource survey for banks in Ghana

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Business News of Tuesday, 13 February 2018 Source: www.ghanaweb.com Human Resource and business consulting experts, Acreaty Ghana, today launched their maiden human resource survey for the banking sector in a bid to fully understand the competitiveness of these banks based on employee satisfaction.

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An Inside Look: NRHA’s Retail Management Certification Program
The NRHA (North American Retail Hardware Association) program is created for setting up the employees and their spouse/dependents within home improvement businesses. This applies to how Human Resources work in many companies, keeping the health and interest for employees in the minds of the department.

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The North American Retail Hardware Association's (NRHA) Retail Management Certification Program has helped more than 100 leading independent home improvement businesses invest in their futures.

The program is designed to prepare next-generation family members and key employees to take their next step in the business.

Students of the six-month college-level program enhance their skills in strategic planning, decision-making, leadership and management skills while advancing their knowledge in all areas of retail operations, including finance and accounting, human resources management, marketing, sales and more.

Students of the Fall 2017 session of the Retail Management Certification Program recently completed their third and final in-person class sessions.
Watch this video to see a recap of the three-day visit and to hear what students and sponsors have to say about their experiences.
The deadline to apply for the next session of the program is Feb. 28. Learn more at nrharmcp.com or contact Tom Marcum at tmarcum@nrha.org or 317-440-9782.

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An Inside Look: NRHA's Retail Management Certification Program | Hardware Retailing

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The North American Retail Hardware Association's (NRHA) Retail Management Certification Program has helped more than 100 leading independent home improvement businesses invest in their futures. The program is designed to prepare next-generation family members and key employees to take their next step in the business.

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Carina Cortez joins Ellie Mae as Executive Vice President of Human Resources
The book “Strategy, HRM, and Performance” is written by two professors, who mentions the important challenges with human relationships. The article describing the book calls it having a “critical perspective”, which is easy to understand with the importance of human resource.

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About Ellie Mae

Ellie Mae (NYSE:ELLI) is a leading provider of innovative on-demand software solutions and services for the residential mortgage industry. Ellie Mae's Encompass(r) all-in-one mortgage management solution provides one system of record that allows banks, credit unions and mortgage lenders to originate and fund mortgages and improve compliance, loan quality and efficiency. Visit EllieMae.com or call 877.355.4362 to learn more.

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Carina Cortez joins Ellie Mae as Executive Vice President of Human Resources - CUInsight

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Ellie Mae® (NYSE: ELLI), the leading cloud-based platform provider for the mortgage finance industry, today announced that Carina Cortez has joined the company as Executive Vice President of Human Resources. In this role, Carina will be responsible for leading the Company's human resources organization with a focus on attracting and retaining top talent, managing workforce ...

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Faculty publishes book on strategy, human resource management and performance
The book “Strategy, HRM, and Performance” is written by two professors, who mentions the important challenges with human relationships. The article describing the book calls it having a “critical perspective”, which is easy to understand with the importance of human resource.

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Associate Professor of Human Resource Management (HRM) Elaine Farndale, along with Jaap Paauwe, professor of human resource studies at Tilburg University, published the book, "Strategy, HRM, and Performance" earlier this year. The book was published in the United States by Oxford University Press in January 2018, and was released in the U.K. in November 2017.

According to the Oxford University Press website, the book "expounds the macro-level relationship between strategy, HRM, and performance, addressing important challenges that have constrained research and practice to date. Adopting a critical perspective, the first challenge is a narrow definition of 'performance' that has been largely driven by a managerialist, profit motive, with little regard for the human element."

Farndale also is affiliated with the HR (human resources) Studies Department at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She holds a doctorate in HRM from Cranfield School of Management in the U.K. Farndale's specialist areas of interest and research include international and comparative HRM; the status, professionalism and roles of the HR department; HRM and firm performance; and HRM and employee engagement. She has presented numerous papers at international conferences and has published articles and chapters in both the practitioner and academic press, such as Journal of World Business, Sloan Management Review, Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Journal and International Journal of Human Resource Management. She also has worked previously as an HR specialist for several years.

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Faculty publishes book on strategy, human resource management and performance | Penn State University

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Associate Professor of Human Resource Management Elaine Farndale, along with Jaap Paauwe, Professor of Human Resource Studies at Tilburg University, published the book, "Strategy, HRM, and Performance" earlier this year. The book was published in the United States by Oxford University Press in January 2018, and was released in the U.K.

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Do Women Bosses Have an Extra Responsibility to Look Out For Women?
Focusing in the corporate world, women helping other women and take on the responsibility to watch each other is a delicate topic. Two CEOs talk about the topic and how Hillary handled a campaign worker who was accused of sexual harassment in 2008, which helps understand the importance of responsibility that managers must take for their employees, and understand the outcome that comes out of helping or hindering them.

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Management Matters

Practical advice for federal leaders on managing people, processes and projects.

State Department file photo

Shortly after news broke that Hillary Clinton had allowed an advisor on her 2008 presidential campaign to keep his job after he was accused of sexual harassment, the former US secretary of State wrote an explanation on her Facebook page. "The short answer is this," she wrote. "If I had it to do again, I wouldn't." She noted:

"I recognize that the situation on my 2008 campaign was unusual in that a woman complained to a woman who brought the issue to a woman who was the ultimate decision maker. There was no man in the chain of command. The boss was a woman. Does a woman have a responsibility to come down even harder on the perpetrator? I don't know. But I do believe that a woman boss has an extra responsibility to look out for the women who work for her, and to better understand how issues like these can affect them."

Clinton brings up an interesting question that has implications beyond her own decision. Do women managers have a responsibility to come down even harder on perpetrators of sexual harassment? An extra responsibility to look out for women who work for them?

Quartz at Work asked two women CEOs to weigh in on this question. One runs a technology company that makes software for desk-less workplaces. The other, a diversity and inclusion expert, founded a company that facilitates workshops on inclusion and leadership.

Stacey Epstein, CEO of Zinc:

"I appreciate the fact that [Hillary Clinton] takes the time to reflect, is willing to admit she wasn't always perfect, and might make a different decision now. I even agree with the fact that maybe giving him the second chance was the right decision. As for the specific topic of whether or not women have an "extra" responsibility, I have a strong opinion that we don't. In fact, by saying that we do, it somehow implies that men are held to a lesser standard. Do I think that women should align and support each other? Yes. Do I love groups like pantsuit nation and the women's march? Yes! But should female managers be held to a higher standard in their response to harassment. No way."

Michelle Kim, founder and CEO of Awaken:

"I think the question here comes down to what is the ideal versus reality. In an ideal scenario, all people would share the equal amount of responsibility to look out for each other. However, the unfortunate reality is that for too many people who have not experienced sexual harassment, or for people who hold certain privileges (of being white, cis-gender, male, heterosexual, etc.), seeing and recognizing the experiences of harm seems to be more difficult. Therefore, it pains me to admit that today, in order to raise awareness and call out injustice, the bulk of the burden is falling on the shoulders of marginalized people.

Women in positions of power shouldn't have to shoulder additional burden of calling out injustices and holding abusers accountable. However, women often end up shouldering additional burden because others around them refuse to, or are gravely oblivious. But this is not to justify the imbalance of responsibility to look out for injustice-rather, I think people should start to recognize this imbalance and hopefully those in positions of privilege (e.g., men) can step up to the plate to share the burden. I mean, in a really ideal world, men would shoulder more responsibility to do better in calling out injustices against women and trans people, since they hold privileges women and trans folks do not. But I'd say we're pretty far from being in that world."

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Do Women Bosses Have an Extra Responsibility to Look Out For Women?

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Management Matters Practical advice for federal leaders on managing people, processes and projects. State Department file photo Shortly after news broke that Hillary Clinton had allowed an advisor on her 2008 presidential campaign to keep his job after he was accused of sexual harassment, the former US secretary of State wrote an explanation on her Facebook page.

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Whether you’re a new leader or a seasoned one, you must master the art of delegation to be an effective leader
Delegation is the act of sending personnel to perform a task or objective. As mentioned in the article, having effectual delegation with others in the workplace helps the leader strengthen their skills and improving the relationship in employees.

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Whether you're a new leader or a seasoned one, you must master the art of delegation to be an effective leader.

There is no way around it. There are many ways to define it, but simply put, delegation is one person giving another person (normally manager to subordinate) the responsibility, power or authority to carry out a specific role or responsibility, while maintaining accountability for the outcomes.

The ability to delegate effectively is a crucial skill needed by leaders at all levels. For those of you who say you're not good at it, who avoid delegating unless there's absolutely no other alternative, or frequently says, "I'd rather just do it myself," maybe delegation is just an underdeveloped and underutilized management skill you can improve on.

Effective delegation may not come easy to you. But when it's done right - when responsibilities are assigned based on team members' skills, talents and education - it can help reduce your unit's overall workload. Successful delegation can help you multiply yourself as you divide up responsibilities, and allow you to work on other issues, such as planning, budgeting and quality management.

Effective delegation helps everyone

Delegating effectively can benefit everyone. For instance, your strengths as a leader and your relationship with your staff can improve. And joint decision-making between you and your staff can lead to better communication, which can improve patient care and safety.

When you delegate, staff members know you're recognizing their talents and that they are important to the group. They are likely to take on greater responsibilities and maybe even feel more willing to try new things. Their critical thinking skills can be strengthened, their confidence levels can increase and many of them will begin to grow into new leaders themselves.

Good delegation can make your patient care assignment methods work better and promote more cohesive work groups and smoother running units. Productivity, work output and efficiency can increase, and patient and staff satisfaction scores can rise.

What delegation is and what it's not

I have highlighted what successful delegation is, but what is just as important is to define what delegation is not.

Delegation is not giving away jobs you don't want to do yourself. Whatever you do, don't use it just to get tasks off your to-do list. Think instead about delegating authority and responsibility to the staff members you know can handle them. Also, try not to view delegation just as an exercise; view it as something that will help you with the way you manage every day.

Your staff members are professionals who want their talents and skills to be used - and they want to be recognized. If you never single them out or delegate anything important to them, and if you never expect them to exercise professional autonomy and make independent decisions, you may lose them.

Delegation is not just a skill you should have, but an important part of your facility's top-to-bottom organizational authority. Part of your role as a leader is to ensure it is occurring at all levels. One person can't do everything, so all members of the team should be delegated to and be able to delegate. When delegation is effective down through the different levels of an organization, from the boardroom to the bedside, the organization becomes stronger.

Remember, patient care is a team effort, and delegation can strengthen that effort. When you use your leadership authority to delegate effectively you build respect, strengthen your team, improve patient care and exemplify what nursing leadership is all about.

Tips to hone your delegation skills

Becoming skilled at delegation requires practice and patience. Those of you who are effective delegators already know that. Share your knowledge on the skill. Engage new leaders and staff in the process, and watch them grow and blossom into effective delegators.

Here are some tips you can share - my baker's dozen - that might help along the way:

1 - Don't look at delegation as a negative.

2 - Stop wanting to do everything yourself.

3- Be willing to give up some control.

4 - Identify the staff members to whom you can delegate.

5 - Match staff abilities with responsibilities.

6 - Look at licensure, education and skill sets when determining who should do what.

7 - Set realistic, achievable, measurable goals.

8 - Make appropriate timelines and deadlines.

9 - Formulate precise and concise directions.

10 - Articulate clearly all expected outcomes.

11 - Identify possible problems and roadblocks before delegating.

12 - Give staff plenty of advice and affirmation.

13 - Provide needed resources and consultants.

Courses related to 'leadership'

CE620: Evidence-Based Effective Nursing Leadership (1 contact hr)
Rarely do nurse leaders consider that their leadership practice should also be evidence-based. The use of evidence-based practice helps leaders to make more effective leadership decisions based on research and knowledge rather than traditions, hunches, and the advice of colleagues or outdated leadership information. In this module, we will examine five evidence-based strategies you will want to consider to improve your leadership effectiveness.

WEB300: Transformational Leadership for Staff Nurses (1 contact hr)
Supplement your clinical knowledge with the leadership skills that can benefit your pursuit of management and leadership roles. Is there a difference between a manager and a leader? What is a transformational leader? If you are a staff nurse looking to advance your career through continuing your education, taking on additional responsibilities at work, or pursuing a brand new nursing position, join this webinar to learn leadership skills that can help equip you to be not only a great nurse but also a great leader.

CE622: Succession Planning in Nursing
(1 contact hr)
To ensure a pool of qualified internal candidates, succession planning is a necessary business strategy. Succession planning encompasses the focused, formal assessment and development of individuals for future positions in leadership. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists registered nursing as the occupation with the highest probability of job growth through 2022 with a probable growth increase from 2.71 million in 2012 to 3.4 million in 2022. There will be a need for 525,000 replacement nurses due to those leaving the workforce. When coupled with the total projected growth, 2022 promises to demonstrate a shortage of 1.05 million registered nurses. According to a 2013 survey, 55% of the nursing workforce is 50 years of age or older. With baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) moving into retirement, healthcare facilities need to hire and retain qualified leadership personnel in a competitive market.

About the author

Eileen Williamson, MSN, RN, is a former senior vice president and CNE at OnCourse Learning, where she led nursing programs and initiatives. She continues to write and act as a consultant for Nurse.com. Before joining the company in 1998, Eileen was employed by North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in New York, where she held a number of leadership positions in nursing and hospital administration, including chief nurse at two of the system's member hospitals. She holds a BSN and an MSN in administration, and is a graduate fellow of the Johnson & Johnson University of Pennsylvania Wharton School Nurse Executives program. She also is a board member and past president of the New Jersey League for Nursing, a constituent league of the National League for Nursing.

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Leaders must learn the art of effective delegation

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There is no way around it. There are many ways to define it, but simply put, delegation is one person giving another person (normally manager to subordinate) the responsibility, power or authority to carry out a specific role or responsibility, while maintaining accountability for the outcomes.

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How managers can deal with upward delegation
Delegation in the workplace is normally passed from manager to subordinate. Unfortunately, delegation can work backwards. When the employee to manager delegation happens in the workplace, some of the ways to help work through the process is to work together with employees to solve “the monkey” as a team.

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Delegation is supposed to go downward. But surprisingly often it goes upward, to the boss.

That's not always unwelcome. Take my father's grocery-butcher shop. Although some customers preferred the other butcher to cut their meat or the cashier to pick out their vegetables from their phone orders, most people expected "Mr. Bennie" to take care of things, and his staff involved him in everything. The Michael Connelly mystery I am listening to is like that: Everything ultimately gets decided and handled by lawyer Mickey Haller. Small businesses and professional services often run that way.

But in a hectic knowledge-worker world, delegation is supposed to be downward. Years ago, the continual exceptions in offices were captured in a classic 1974 Harvard Business Review article, Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? It continues today.

For example, you walk into your office, eager to prepare for an early-morning meeting with a major supplier. But a colleague stops you. She is in charge of planning the forthcoming staff retreat and has a list of the possible food choices. Could you look at them and decide before noon?

You hit your own office, but before you can delve into the file on the supplier your administrative assistant pokes his head in the door. "Boss, we have a problem," he says. You had asked him to clear up a complaint from a customer. But the issue is thornier than it seemed, he insists. Could you call the customer today?

In both cases, "the monkey" has been passed back to you. What wears managers down - and keeps them from completing their own work - is when the burdens of subordinates always seem to end up on the manager's back.

You passed the metaphorical monkey onto your colleague's back when you told her to plan the retreat. She passed it back to you when she asked for your decision on the food. The same with the administrative assistant: You told him late yesterday afternoon to fix the problem, passing the monkey to him. Whammo. You have it back again early the next morning, sucked in by that deceptive phrase, "Boss, we have a problem."

And that happens, for many of us, repeatedly during the day, despite our best intentions to delegate. Back and forth the monkey goes, when in order for you to drive your organization forward you need to be able to focus on your own work and have the staff handle what has been delegated.

In the article by William Oncken, Jr. and Donald Wass, the manager realizes the problem. When a staff member next comes to him to hand back an assigned task, he breaks the habit. "At no time while I am helping you with this or any other problem will your problem become my problem. The instant your problem becomes mine, you no longer have a problem," he notes.

"When this meeting is over, the problem will leave this office exactly the way it came in - on your back. You may ask my help at any appointed time, and we will make a joint determination of what the next move will be, and which of us will make it.

"In those rare instances when the next move turns out to be mine, you and I will determine it together. I will not make any move alone."

It may be hard to find those words in the frenzy of a day, particularly if, like me, you grew up with a different model of operating - in my case, G&M Meat Market. In a recent blog post on the dangers of upward delegation, Gene Morrissy, a partner with RHR International, points to other psychological factors involved that you may need to address, such as subordinates' fear of being punished for making a mistake; a culture that encourages being too risk-averse; or the leader that loves solving problems or feeling needed by the team. His recommendations include that team members should come prepared to identify not only the problem but also the specific involvement they need from the leader, what they have already tried, at least two possible solutions, and their recommendation as to the best alternative.

Be aware of the monkey. It may be on your back more than you realize.
Cannonballs

What have you learned about your own management and judgment of others from the story of Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who was the surprise winner of a riding for which she was parachuted in for the 2011 federal election, and who is now celebrated as a success story after being named NDP House Leader? Are you too quick to dismiss potential, particularly unconventional potential? How could you spot someone who doesn't fit your hiring criteria by a country mile but has smarts, resilience and determination to succeed? Indeed, do you spend too much time on criteria that obscure what's really important? How can you avoid bandwagons in your organization that, as with the avalanche of attacks on Ms. Brosseau in 2011, cry out for some perspective and alternative thinking?

Entrepreneur Seth Godin says the hard part isn't coming up with a new idea - t's falling out of love with the old idea.

Bob Hoffman, who was CEO of two ad agencies, says Monty Python would have been the greatest ad agency in history. Ads need inspired silliness - not stupidity - that subversively draws attention.

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How managers can deal with upward delegation

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Delegation is supposed to go downward. But surprisingly often it goes upward, to the boss. That's not always unwelcome. Take my father's grocery-butcher shop. Although some customers preferred the other butcher to cut their meat or the cashier to pick out their vegetables from their phone orders, most people expected "Mr. Bennie" to take care of things, and his staff involved him in everything.

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How be a more strategic manager
In this article, there is a list of strategies made to help grow as a manager and bring skills to the company. Important topics to maintain strategy as a manager is to practice effective communication, working with change in the workplace, and developing one’s people skills.

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Effective communication with stakeholders is the key to successfully managing strategy and change in the workplace.

Some people may be natural born leaders, but strategic leadership skills can also be learned and improved through practice - which is just as well given that according to one study, the difference between the impact a top-performing leader and an average leader has on an organisation is at least 50 per cent.

John Trevillyan FCPA, who has over 21 years' experience at Melbourne Business School and is a partner of Negotiation Education Australia, says leaders invariably hold the key to employee engagement, which is integral to business success.

He is also a facilitator of CPA Australia's upcoming Strategic Manager Program, the latest in its Strategic Finance Leader Suite of executive education programs. The three-day course in part utilises the ground-breaking work of Robert Kaplan and David Norton, best known as the originators of the Balanced Scorecard, a strategic management tool that links a company's current actions with its long-term goals.

Executing on your company strategy

According to Kaplan and Norton, there is a disconnect in most companies between strategy formulation and strategy execution, with their research revealing that, on average, 95 per cent of a company's employees are unaware of, or do not understand, its strategy.

"Most people are happy to be involved in something they understand, but many companies do not spend enough time measuring performance against strategy, and when people don't understand what they're doing they become disengaged," Trevillyan says.

Of course, this assumes they were ever engaged in the first place because, as he notes, there's a good chance no one ever asked for their input.

"It's been said that only 10 per cent of strategies succeed. I find that hard to believe, but it is probably less than 50 per cent. Leadership is about being able to articulate a vision and translate it into an action people can understand and follow. Some see the vision but can't translate it, in which case a good leader would know how to delegate to people who can make it happen for them. For example, a good tradesperson can often need a partner who is a good businessperson."

Be clear but 'fuzzy'

In this respect, having a clear strategic plan from the outset is paramount, but according to Trevillyan, leaving a bit of "fuzziness" around the edges can help.

"If you are really listening to people you are going to have to tweak any strategy," he maintains.

The trick is staying true to and delivering on the company's overriding objectives while being nimble enough to exploit new opportunities which - perhaps because of changed economic conditions - suddenly arise.

However, the larger an organisation, the more important and difficult effective communication can become. Before it merged with AMP, Trevillyan worked extensively with insurance firm AXA, which every three to five years would adapt its corporate strategy to the changing market.

He says the company would book out a function area at the National Tennis Centre in Melbourne to not only inform managers of key shifts in strategy, but distribute brochures showing them exactly how the changes were to be communicated to staff. Although expensive, it achieved buy-in from management and ensured everyone from the top down was quickly and effectively brought onto the same page.

"In the case of AXA, they were changing from cost-cutting to becoming a growth-oriented organisation, which required a change in performance management systems," Trevillyan says.

Develop a consensus

Although AXA's new direction was determined by the board, it was up to managers to obtain broad consensus among the rank and file on how the goals it set could be best achieved.

"You may or may not be a part of overall strategy development, but as a manager you are going to have to make it happen, and that means developing a broad coalition behind it," Trevillyan says.

"Once you establish the process, the performance management system has to match. If there is a new focus on customer service you could need more staff, which will be an added cost that has to be measured."

For example, a key plank of hardware chain Bunnings' strategy is to have sufficient staff on the shop floor to provide all customers with purchasing advice, even though 80 per cent don't need it. The rationale, however, is that without the assistants it would lose 20 per cent of sales.

Executive education: The Strategic Manager program gives you the skills you need for effective strategy and leadership. Learn how to lead and engage staff, and leave with an action plan and strategy map. Find out more.

Overcome resistance to change

Change is often seen as a threat, and overcoming resistance to it is all about effectively communicating why it is needed - something that requires far more than just an email.

Generating consensus, Trevillyan emphasises, means properly addressing people's concerns about change.

However, if a strategy is to be successfully executed, you also need to ask yourself whether you have the right people in the right place with the right skillsets, motivation and commitment for the job.

"Leadership is about explaining and listening and getting the best results from people," Trevillyan says.

"It's also about walking the talk in terms of what the company wants to achieve - helping to develop the strategies that will make the company's core strategy work - and a key part of that is making certain the right people are in place."

Implement distributed leadership

This is often called "distributed leadership"; the process of moving away from old structures that involve top-down leadership in favour of spreading decision-making ability throughout a team, particularly to those on the front lines of the operation. Encouraging initiative and collaboration, the technique allows those closest to the action to make the decisions that will most affect their success.

"Take Winston Churchill as an example, who never fired a bullet during the Second World War," Trevillyan says.

"He led and managed from above, letting the people below him - most with completely different attributes - achieve the successes he wanted [and Britain, aka the company, needed]."

Focus on people's skills

This also ties into "targeted leadership", where once consensus on what will and won't work has been reached, as a boss you need to keep those who are especially good at their job challenged and delegate to them accordingly, all the while with an eye on those further down the chain for whom the notion of change, and how to respond, may be new.

Trevillyan says this relates to what is known as the "four stages of competence", but from a manager's perspective the essence is to help someone "know what they don't know" or recognise a blind spot.

"As a leader it is important to spend more time developing these people's skills so they can move to the next phase of being fully competent in their role. It is also where, as a good leader, you identify the people who can or can't move to whatever is required."

Interestingly, he believes it is probably possible to be a manager without being a leader - "but I don't think you can be a good leader if you don't have some management skills, or at least the ability to understand where you haven't got those skills."

In CPA Australia's Strategic Negotiator Program, which will run again in 2018, Trevillyan emphasises the importance of managers seeing themselves as negotiators with stakeholders, listening to and questioning what they say to get their own message across.

"But how much time do organisations spend on executive committee meetings talking about strategy versus people's belief in it?" he asks. "If you look at their agendas, I think it would be less than 10 per cent.

"Yes, companies need good strategy, but it has to be effectively communicated. You also need the right people and operational delivery processes that align with core goals. You need a performance culture to drive the execution, because culture eats strategy for breakfast.

"That's where consensus comes in, which needs leadership from the top, and also distributed leadership, which through communication and consensus can ensure that people down the line are making the right decisions within the frameworks they are given."

Executive education: The Strategic Manager program gives you the skills you need for effective strategy and leadership. Learn how to lead and engage staff, and leave with an action plan and strategy map. Find out more.

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Effective communication with stakeholders is the key to successfully managing strategy and change in the workplace. Some people may be natural born leaders, but strategic leadership skills can also be learned and improved through practice - which is just as well given that according to one study, the difference between the impact a top-performing leader and an average leader has on an organisation is at least 50 per cent.

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Valero's Management Already Has Plans for Its Upcoming Tax Break
Much like a plan to file for taxes personally, the company Valero Energy has created plans to help determine the tax benefit coming for this year, as Trump’s tax plan will affect millions of Americans. Planning for the tax season this year is important for all companies, so the best report for Valero is the separating earning into three parts: refining, ethanol, and interest in partners.

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Who would have thought that the best investment in oil and gas last year would be ( refining companies? By most accounts, rising crude oil prices should narrow margins and make for lean times in the industry. That wasn't the case, though, as Valero Energy NYSE:VLO) and others posted surprisingly strong results in the second half of the year.
Tyler Crowe has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
This past quarter, Valero reported a blowout quarter that was more than six times the prior year's result. While the quarter was good, it wasn't that good. So let's dig into the numbers for this quarter and get a feel for what investors can expect from Valero for the rest of 2018.

By the numbers

Metric

Q4 2017

Q3 2017

Q4 2016

Revenue

$26.39 billion

$23.56 billion

$20.71 billion

Operating income

$853 million

$1.34 billion

$620 million

Diluted EPS

$5.42

$1.91

$0.81

Operating cash flow

$1.66 billion

$1.04 billion

$998 million

Refining is one of those industries with high tax rates because of relatively low depreciation expenses and few tax breaks. So the recent change to the corporate tax rate to 21% is a profound change for Valero. This past quarter, the company realized a $1.6 billion net tax benefit because these tax law changes reduced the company's overall deferred tax liability. That makes this quarter look much better than what should be considered a relatively decent quarter. Adjusting for this one-time tax benefit, Valero reported a respectable $1.16 per share.

Management likes to report its earnings in three segments -- Refining, ethanol, and its interest in Valero Energy Partners ( NYSE:VLP). It may be an accurate description of how management views the business, the thing that matters to investors is how its refining segment does because it represents the bulk of its earnings.

The third quarter of 2017 was an excellent quarter for refining margins. The hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast region temporarily shut down some facilities and also increased total gasoline demand. So to expect another quarter like that seems a bit much. Still, Valero posted a respectable refining result as its utilization rate was 96% and its operating expense was just $3.55 per barrel.

Valero's strongest segments continue to be its operations in the U.S. Gulf Coast. Its Gulf Coast operations benefit from its massive scale (1.8 million barrels per day of capacity) and its ability to realize higher prices on exports. Mid-Continent results were also much better this past quarter, but that was almost entirely from higher refining margins. Valero's West Coast operations are still the laggard of the business as management has struggled to reign in per barrel costs relative to the rest of the company.

At the end of the quarter, Valero had $5.8 billion in cash on hand and $8.8 billion in total debt. With cash from operations on the rise even before the changes to the tax code take place, the company has a lot of walking around money.

What management had to say

Here's part of CEO Joe Gorder's high-level overview for the coming year and what Valero intends to do in 2018.

Looking ahead, we continue to see a favorable fundamental environment, with abundant crude oil supply and strong products demand being supported by global economic growth. We're also encouraged by the potential benefits to the refining industry from Tax Reform and the reduction in the global limit for fuel oil sulfur.

With a lower tax burden in 2018 resulting from Tax Reform, we expect to see a significant benefit to Valero's net cash provided by operating activities.

Before this earnings release, Valero's Board of Directors approved a 14% increase to its regular cash dividend as well as authorization for management to purchase an additional $2.5 billion in stock on top of its existing share repurchase authority. As it stands, management can buy back $3.7 billion of the company's stock under the current buyback program.

What a Fool believes

With refining margins holding steady in the face of rising oil prices and the impending changes to the U.S. tax code, Valero is looking better and better by the day. The company has a suite of investments to increase its presence in Mexico, expand refined product exports, and improve its crude oil sourcing for some of its refineries. That may not sound like much in terms of organic growth, but the company's ability to throw off so much free cash flow that management rewards shareholders with it makes for a relatively decent value proposition.

With a dividend hike on the way and authority to repurchase 8.7% of the company's market capitalization with share buybacks, there is a good chance that 2018 is going to be a good year for Valero's shareholders.

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Valero's Management Already Has Plans for Its Upcoming Tax Break

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Who would have thought that the best investment in oil and gas last year would be ( refining companies? By most accounts, rising crude oil prices should narrow margins and make for lean times in the industry. That wasn't the case, though, as Valero Energy NYSE:VLO) and others posted surprisingly strong results in the second half of the year.

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Objection Period Closes For Flathead Forest Management Plan
Recent revisions to the Flathead National Forest plan have been made to be up to date. It is important for the animals that reside in the forest to be kept safe, and since recent news of the grizzly bears now out of endangered species stats, efforts must be planned accordingly to help shift workers onto other endangered animals in the park.

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The Flathead National Forest is now reviewing all the objections to the final draft of its new forest management plan.

The Flathead National Forest released that draft plan back in mid-December. It's essentially the blueprint that will guide land use decisions on the forest for at least the next decade. Groups who were involved in writing the plan had two months to file objections. The Flathead's Forest Plan Revision Team Leader, Joe Krueger, says that objection period closed Monday.

"We've received 74 timely objections regarding the revision of the Flathead's plan, as well as the associated Regional Forester's species of conservation concern as well as the Lolo, Helena, Lewis and Clark and Koootenai National Forest amendments," Krueger says.

The plan includes a section on grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. Federal managers say that population may no longer need endangered species protections.

And that's what worries critics, like Arlene Montgomery, with Friends of the Wild Swan. That local non-profit was one of the 74 that filed an objection.

"If you're going to have a forest plan, it should be one that at least is beneficial to wildlife, one that does not have an adverse effect to wildlife like grizzly bears, lynx and bull trout."

Montgomery and other conservation groups that are critical of the revised plan say it doesn't do enough to protect fish and wildlife. They say it ignores best available science and offers no direction for maintaining a sustainable road system.

"I think we always need to be pushing for what's best for what's best for wildlife, fish and water quality. That's what we're doing," Montgomery says.

The Flathead National Forest's Joe Krueger says his colleagues in the Forest Service believe they're doing the same thing.

"You definitely have the environmental organizations mirroring themselves on their points, but we do have quite a few letters of support as well," Kreger says.

Forest officials will now review the objections to the final draft of its new forest plan and are expected to respond to them later this spring.

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Objection Period Closes For Flathead Forest Management Plan

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The Flathead National Forest is now reviewing all the objections to the final draft of its new forest management plan. The Flathead National Forest released that draft plan back in mid-December. It's essentially the blueprint that will guide land use decisions on the forest for at least the next decade.

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MULTIPLE HEIRS COMPLICATE ESTATE PLANNING
For America, farming is considered to be essential but few have plans to maintain it and keep it going. Multiple heirs bring some problems since everyone has different points and interests for land, operations, and other assets that come with the family occupation. In order to solve it, managing finances must be applied to plan for the diffusion of inheritance, bringing lawyers and financial settlers to help.

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By Myron Friesen

SUBMITTED BY L.K., VIA EMAIL:

I read these articles about families with one farming heir and I think to myself how easy that would be! We thought we would have four children. We ended up having triplets on our last pregnancy. We have worked hard to acquire over 2,000 acres of prime farmland. We also raise cattle, contract-feed hogs, and do some custom work. Our kids generally get along, but we know they have different interests on the farm. They all have families at different stages, and a couple of them want to grow and have a big vision for the future. Others are less driven to grow the operation because they also have interests off the farm and have younger families.

Our farm is profitable, and some days I think it would be great to keep it all together, especially when I read articles about something like an LLC. There are days when I truly fear what this could look like a few generations from now when there are more assets and more people. Can our problem be solved?

THE SOLUTION:

I think a better question might be whether a problem can be avoided. To people on the outside, your farm and family probably look glorious. They see a bunch of assets and people available to help. However, more than likely, all six of your children are probably thinking about some of the same things you're concerned with.

You could arrange a couple of figurative boxes, one for land, one for livestock, one for the operation. On the tags, write "From Mom and Dad," and then figure out who to address each box to. It's easy to say the farming heirs need to keep the operational assets, and then all land assets can go to anyone with guidelines. It gets interesting when some want to improve or leverage those assets, while others do not have that same goal. Do those who want to grow end up growing the entity for everyone? Or do they peel off and start growing on their own? Who will want or need cash? How do your children plan for their families?

Here are some options.

1. Leave as one big unit. With different goals and family situations, your exit strategy and management rules will require more time than your entry strategy.

2. Develop entities and leaders for each area of your farm. This has good potential with time spent on guidelines for each entity and how each entity would interact with the others. There could be some independence while generally staying together.

3. Keep the operation together (possibly with an entity) but split up the land among all children with buyout and rent options. Wait, that's contrary to what most people would say and even what I think sometimes. However, the efficiency is in combining the use of labor and machinery. If people maintain individual ownership of their land, they can make a choice of being more efficient and staying with the group, or possibly going off on their own.

Sometimes I don't like all the options I write down, but it helps me discover what does not sound good and, hopefully, that eventually points me in the right direction.

Regardless of the option you choose, I think it's important that the plan allows everyone to feel valued and everyone has incentive to work. Drawing out a picture with an overall vision will help. Just make sure that if you have any non-negotiable priorities, you make them clear to your children before opening it up for discussion.

Your Transition Team Members

Myron Friesen is co-owner of Farm Financial Strategies in Osage, Iowa. During the past 18 years, he has worked exclusively with farm families across the Midwest to develop farm transition strategies. Myron grew up on a Mountain Lake, Minnesota, farm. He owns and operates a 780-acre crop and livestock farm with his wife and four children. farmestate.com

Dr. Donald J. Jonovic is founder of Family Business Management Services in Cleveland, Ohio. He focuses on management, growth, and ownership transition issues. familybusinessmgt.com

Jolene Brown is a professional speaker, author, farmer, and family business consultant. Her tested business tools provide leadership and management solutions for the people who feed, clothe, and fuel the world. jolenebrown.com

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Multiple Heirs Complicate Estate Planning

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By Myron Friesen I read these articles about families with one farming heir and I think to myself how easy that would be! We thought we would have four children. We ended up having triplets on our last pregnancy. We have worked hard to acquire over 2,000 acres of prime farmland.

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Multinational corporations have a hold on the World Bank, according to new research
The organization World Bank uses its strength as an international source to aid countries all over the world. The country with the most ownership in the organization is United States with a stake of 17.2%, toppling over the Japan’s 7.4%, a distant second. The more an international company takes managerial responsibility, the better for a loan/project to be accepted.

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Not every company that works with the World Bank is on equal footing. Multinationals from the United States and Japan are much more likely to have their contracts paid out than others. Due to their political power at the bank, these companies can get paid even when they might not deserve it.

That is the argument of a research paper by the political scientists Rabia Malik and Randall Stone recently published in The Journal of Politics . Malik and Stone, professors at New York University Abu Dhabi and the University of Rochester, analyzed 4,000 World Bank projects approved from 1981 to 2012 to see if disbursement for World Bank project payments was impacted by the type of company involved. Even after accounting for factors like the size and performance of the project, they found that projects with multinationals received higher disbursement rates.

The average project received a disbursement rate of 89.5%, but projects with multinationals did almost three percentage points better. There was an even larger effect on projects where a multinational took on management responsibilities. In those cases, their analysis shows that disbursement rates were about seven percentage points higher. The results are statistically significant, but even more importantly, they make sense. The effect is strongest for US and Japan multinationals, the two countries with the largest ownership stakes in the World Bank, and thus access to influence at the bank.

Randall Stone has spent his career studying the impact of corporations and powerful countries on multilateral institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Stone's 2011 book Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy is a seminal book on how influence is exerted at the World Bank. Based on his research into the inner working of the World Bank, Stone told Quartz that he thinks the most likely way the US and Japan affect disbursement is through companies indirectly putting pressure on their economic ministries.

For example, in the US, Stone says a firm will call the representative from their congressional district where they are headquartered and ask them for help making sure a loan is disbursed. That representative will pass it on to someone working at the US Treasury, who will pass it on to the World Bank. Given the large amount of funding the US provides, officials at the World Bank have an incentive to try to go along with US requests.

Though Stone is confident that influence peddling is going on at the World Bank, he acknowledges that it is possible there could be other explanations for the disbursement difference. "We don't have a smoking gun," Stone told Quartz. "What we have is a strong circumstantial case. We have done a lot of different analyses to try to account for other possible explanations, and haven't found any."

Quartz contacted the World Bank for comment on the research, but their response did not directly address whether multinationals held any sway over disbursement. They did point out that the majority of contracts go to local firms rather than multinational corporations, so this issue would be limited to a relatively small number of contracts.

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Multinational corporations have a hold on the World Bank, according to new research

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Not every company that works with the World Bank is on equal footing. Multinationals from the United States and Japan are much more likely to have their contracts paid out than others. Due to their political power at the bank, these companies can get paid even when they might not deserve it.

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Walmart is cutting management roles at some stores
A recent choice was made in Walmart, when the multinational company decided to cut down managerial roles in several locations in America to help with the wage raise for the associate, and increase benefits for them all. This give and take relationship in a company this large is an impressive feat to notice, considering how many wouldn’t make this decision so easily.

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Walmart is cutting some department manager positions at lower volume stores.

Many of the workers impacted by the cuts will be placed in other jobs at Walmart, including other management positions, Walmart said

Walmart said last month it was removing 3,500 salaried co-managers and adding 1,700 lower-paid assistant store managers.

Walmart also announced in January that it would raise its starting hourly wages to $11, expand parental leave benefits, and give cash bonuses to employees of up to $1,000.

Walmart is restructuring store management positions at some of its 4,700 stores.

The retailer is cutting two department manager positions at some of its lower volume stores, the Wall Street Journal reports. The hourly positions oversee cell phone departments and online grocery pickup areas, the company said.

Another position, known as frontend zone supervisors, has also been eliminated across Walmart stores, the company told Business Insider. That position was already cut at some Walmart stores during a restructuring several years ago. This most recent move eliminated frontend zone supervisors who remained because the job had redundancies with other positions in the store.

Many of the workers impacted by the cuts will be placed in other jobs at Walmart, including other management positions, Walmart said. Walmart is also adding 800 new ecommerce assistant managers at higher volume stores.

"Retail is changing rapidly and over the past two years, we've been transforming too," a Walmart spokesman said. "Our associates are fundamentally important to this effort, and success depends on having the right people in the right place at the right time. That means creating new roles while consolidating and redesigning others."

The restructuring comes one month after the retailer said it was removing 3,500 salaried co-managers and adding 1,700 lower-paid assistant store managers. Walmart also said last month that it was closing 63 Sam's Club stores in a move that would impact roughly 9,400 employees.

The eliminations follow Walmart's announcement in January that it would raise its starting hourly wages to $11, expand parental leave benefits, and give cash bonuses of up to $1,000 to employees.

"Retail is changing rapidly and over the past two years, we've been transforming too," a Walmart spokesman told the Journal. "That means creating new roles while consolidating and redesigning others."

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Walmart is cutting management roles at some stores

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Walmart is cutting some department manager positions at lower volume stores. Many of the workers impacted by the cuts will be placed in other jobs at Walmart, including other management positions, Walmart said Walmart said last month it was removing 3,500 salaried co-managers and adding 1,700 lower-paid assistant store managers.

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Coca-Cola begins global management challenge in Nigeria
Coca-Cola has made efforts to reach out to the youth in Nigeria by creating their GMC, or Global Management Challenge, inside the country. This competition helps to create managers of the future with the active students participating.

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As part of its commitments to harness the underlying potential of the Nigerian youths, Coca-Cola has commenced the global management challenge (GMC) in Nigeria.

The GMC is a virtual business simulation. It is the largest strategy and management competition in the world, where more than 500,000 university students and company managers are going to participate this year.

The competition kicked-off at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where 80 students with CGPA of 4.30 and above across different departments were selected and sponsored by Coca-Cola. The students will compete for the team to represent Nigeria in the upcoming international finals in Dubai in April 2018.

At the event, the Public Affairs and communications manager, Coca-Cola, Nwamaka Onyemelukwe, applauded the participating students on the life-changing opportunity given them through the initiative. She said the competition would offer the students the knowledge, intelligence and the right experience to be good managers in the future.

Onyemelukwe urged the students to open their minds and remain focused during the competition, as it would further prepare them to become great after graduation.

Head of customer and commercial leadership, Coca-Cola, Peter Ekunkoya said the firm is committed to empowering and providing youths with basic life and business skills to thrive in their endeavours.

He said: "We are committed to impacting the school academically such that whatever we do with them now will further prepare them better for the outside world after graduation. This is why we are launching the Global Management Challenge for the first time in Nigeria to help prepare Nigerian youths by improving their business skills."

Also speaking at the event, Associate Professor and Director, Entrepreneurship and Skills Development Centre, University of Lagos, Dr Sunday Adebisi, commended Coca-Cola for bringing the initiative to the school.

He charged the students to be focused and aim for the best during the competition. Adebisi said the initiative would help them become smart and make wise business decisions in the future.

The GMC coordinator, Mr Ryan commended the school authorities for the display of high level of professionalism and support shown throughout the conceptualization of the programme.

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Coca-Cola begins global management challenge in Nigeria

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As part of its commitments to harness the underlying potential of the Nigerian youths, Coca-Cola has commenced the global management challenge (GMC) in Nigeria. The GMC is a virtual business simulation. It is the largest strategy and management competition in the world, where more than 500,000 university students and company managers are going to participate this year.

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Citigroup Could See Lending and Investment Banking Growth
With Citigroup having a potential growth due to an overwhelming performance that competed with rivaling banks, their effort to keep up this positive development is recorded and noted. A correlation that Citigroup has noticed is the amount of investments that rose under management, while the demand for management grew as well. To keep a large, multinational bank like Citigroup active and credit losses stable, expansion will be in the near future.

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Telfer School of Management Demonstrates High Financial Ethical Standards
In Ontario Canada, Telfer School of Management holds the 2018 Society Toronto Ethics Challenge, a competition created to help teach workers and students the ethical challenges one might face in the corporate world, and the importance of proper ethics and social understanding to help resolve issues. Using a formal analysis in front of judges, their skills are tested and decided by a group of judges. With several schools coming from the northern most parts of North America, peers alike are given a chance to better appreciate the rationale and logic behind ethics in companies.

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TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2018 /CNW/ - On 08 February 2018, the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management was named winners of the 2018 CFA Society Toronto Ethics Challenge. The Toronto champions were led by Faculty Advisor Pouya Safi and included team members: James Beaudoin, Aamena Chatoo, Christian Cotroneo, Natalie Dokmajian, and Nicholas Pelchat. This year's winning team demonstrated their ability to expertly negotiate ethical dilemmas in a real-life investment scenario and presented their case to a panel of seasoned investment professionals.

"Having the opportunity to represent the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management at the 2018 CFA Society Toronto Ethics Challenge was an unforgettable experience. It proved hard work pays off and surrounding yourself with the right people can really bring the best out of a team," said team member James Beaudoin.

The Ethics Challenge is a Canada wide competition, designed to increase students' awareness of the ethical dilemmas they may encounter as future investment management practitioners. Student teams are given an ethics case to study and evaluate. Each team then presents its analysis and recommendations to a panel of judges selected by the host CFA Society. Following a question and answer period with each team, the judges then select a winner. Their decision is based on the quality of the team's understanding of the ethical issues involved, quality of their analysis, presentation, and responses to the judges' questions.

"The 2018 CFA Society Toronto Ethics Challenge was a demanding and thought-provoking exercise for the four participating schools and they definitely rose to the challenge! The judges were amazed at how reflective and thorough the students were in identifying key ethical considerations and utilizing the CFA Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct in assessing the case. Even better, the students provided practical solutions to address the ethical infractions which showed real learning. I enjoyed participating and am optimistic that the students will utilize these valuable ethical learnings throughout their professional careers," said Aaron Vale, CFA, one of the competition's judges.

This year's competing teams include students from University of Ottawa, Telfer School of Management, Queen's University, Smith School of Business, Ryerson University, Ted Rogers School of Management, and York University, Schulich School of Business.

Telfer School of Management will be advancing to the nation level of the competition at the 2018 CFA Societies Canada Ethics Challenge on 03 May 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia. This competition will include local winners from chapters of CFA Societies across Canada.

About CFA Society Toronto
CFA Society Toronto is Canada's largest Society of CFA® charterholders, dedicated to supporting the professional and business development of over 9,500 members. We provide our membership with a local perspective on a global designation through our member services, which include: educational programs, sponsored events, employment postings, quarterly newsletters and networking opportunities. A not-for-profit organization, CFA Society Toronto is affiliated with CFA Institute, the global body that administers the Chartered Financial Analyst® curriculum and sets voluntary, ethics-based performance-reporting standards for the investment industry. CFA Society Toronto's members are leaders in ethics in the financial community. For more information, please refer to www.cfatoronto.ca.

About University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management
The University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management connects you to what matters. Our programs shape influential leaders and responsible managers who have a positive impact on the lives of people, organizations and communities, and our research takes on the major issues; anticipating and devising solutions to tomorrow's challenges.

Located in the heart of Ottawa, our school is the proud academic home of 4,500 students, 89 full-time faculty members, and over 25,000 alumni. Our accreditations from the three most demanding international organizations (AACSB, AMBA & EQUIS) underline our recognition as one of the world's top business schools.
Chartered Financial Analyst® and CFA® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute.
SOURCE CFA Society Toronto

Markets Insider and Business Insider Editorial Teams were not involved in the creation of this post.

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Telfer School of Management Demonstrates High Financial Ethical Standards | Markets Insider

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TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2018 /CNW/ - On 08 February 2018, the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management was named winners of the 2018 CFA Society Toronto Ethics Challenge. The Toronto champions were led by Faculty Advisor Pouya Safi and included team members: James Beaudoin, Aamena Chatoo, Christian Cotroneo, Natalie Dokmajian, and Nicholas Pelchat.

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ZINK: Do the right thing – Ethics in your Business
According to Dennis Zink, the importance of having ethics in the workplace is evident, with making an effort to improve on how others act toward each other helps work productivity. With the bullet list provided, Zink makes an effort to be a socially positive employee, encouraging social responsibility and respect to others in the area.

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"Corporate corruption is widespread. Some leaders are out-and-out crooks directing malfeasance from the top. More often, employees bend or break rules because those in charge are blind to unethical behavior and may unknowingly encourage it."

So says Harvard Business Review.

A business sector with countless examples of an ethical morass is the automotive industry. Dating from the Ford Pinto era, rear-end collisions often ruptured fuel tanks, resulting in leaking fuel and deadly explosions. Casualties were thought of in terms of a dollar amount to settle lawsuits as a cheaper alternative to fixing the problem. Much more recently, General Motors had a massive recall involving faulty ignition parts that was a result of saving pennies at the expense of its reputation and lost lives. And in the biggest automotive recall in history, defective Takata airbag inflators in cars made by several manufacturers showed a high risk of killing passengers with pieces of shrapnel. Volkswagen cheated on diesel-emissions tests.

Sadly, this is only one industry.

The quest for higher profits, conflicts of interest, misguided incentives and coverups of unintended consequences are just some of the reasons business ethics go awry. In the quest for higher profits, cutting corners and other cost savings strategies often backfire and result in the loss of profits and even a businesses' demise.

In a case of the end justifies the means, liar loans were all the rage during the housing boom. Banks and mortgage companies didn't even try to hide it. Government incentives prompted small down payments in an effort to increase home ownership. The ends justified the means - until they didn't.

Honesty, perhaps the most important value, is a slippery slope descending into dishonesty through various stages, such as withholding information, telling white lies, using puff or spin, putting lipstick on a pig, exaggeration and understatement, evading or stretching the truth, and outright lying.

Some of my thoughts on business ethics:

* Be a good corporate citizen. Social responsibility encourages honesty, dignity, respect and fairness in dealing with your associates, customers and vendors.

* Hire ethical people who will do the right thing. The culture of your company should reward safety, diversity, accountability and promote continuous improvement. Culture is made up of the collective behavior of owners, managers and employees.

* I am more ethical than you. Suprisingly, employees tend to see themselves as more ethical than anyone else. They see their peers and coworkers on their level as less ethical than themselves. They see those above their level as even less ethical, with ethical standards descending with ascending levels of management.

* Personal versus business ethics. As a person, of course, you act ethically. Your company is putting pressure on you to achieve quotas as it relates to sales goals. What are you going to do?

* In religion, it's the golden rule of reciprocity. Confucius said in 500 B.C., "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

* It all comes down to values. If you go with your gut, you should stay out of trouble. But your business should have a written code of conduct. Ethics is not event oriented, it is value oriented. David Rockefeller said, "Honesty in business is non-negotiable." Trust is the foundation of all business success.

* The boss. The top dictates the tone on what people say and do in the workplace. Clear and effective company communications are necessary. As the leader, anticipate trouble and be proactive. The best thing a company can do to help it succeed is to take care of its employees and inspire confidence in others.

* The greater good. Sometimes there are no good choices. Ask what decision will provide the greatest long-term benefit to the greatest number of people over the long term. Conversely, what decision will do the least harm to the fewest people over the long term.

In the past few decades, there has been a greater emphasis on stressing the importance of ethics education in business. A person's core values are pretty much set by the time they enter the workplace. If you are obeying the laws, following the rules, using your common sense, and going with your gut, then you should be fine. You can always ask people you trust what they would do in a given circumstance.

In summary, business ethics is about how we treat others and how they treat you. It's a two-way street. Most ethical dilemmas are delineated in shades of gray. Try to be aware of your own blind spots.

Finally, if you get the urge to do something questionable because no one will know, remember this: You will know.

Dennis Zink is a volunteer, certified mentor and chapter chairman of Manasota SCORE. He is the creator and host of Been There, Done That! with Dennis Zink, a nationally syndicated business podcast series. He facilitates a CEO roundtable for the Manatee Chamber of Commerce, created a MeetUp group, Success Strategies for Business Owners and is a business consultant. Email him at centreofinfluence@gmail.com.

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ZINK: Do the right thing - ethics in your business

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"Corporate corruption is widespread. Some leaders are out-and-out crooks directing malfeasance from the top. More often, employees bend or break rules because those in charge are blind to unethical behavior and may unknowingly encourage it."So says Harvard Business Review.A business sector with countless examples of an ethical morass is the automotive industry.

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How To Heed BlackRock's Call For Corporate Social Responsibility
In the article, BlackRock CEO and chairman Larry Fink publicly states that companies who provide a social and financial purpose is important for their own success. By incorporating and creating standards that appeal to the employees and spur motivation is an essential factor, especially with vision statements that help show what path the company attempting to take.

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Larry Fink recently created a shockwave. As cofounder, chairman, and CEO of BlackRock, one of the world's largest global asset management firms, in an open letter to CEOs he caught the attention of financial markets and beyond by insisting on the importance of companies serving a social as well as financial purpose.

Because BlackRock manages more than $6 trillion in assets, Mr. Fink's announcement has the potential to help change companies' behaviors in big ways. But this will happen only if BlackRock and other large asset managers add social performance to their evaluations of companies. To do so, investment funds will need to collect new data.

The good news is that over the past decades, many initiatives have contributed to developing standards to assess companies' social performance. The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, Global Reporting Initiative, and B Lab are examples of initiatives that provide assessment tools companies and investors can use in their efforts to achieve both financial and social goals. In this light, Mr. Fink's announcement did not come out of the blue. It is in part a result of the long and hard work of these initiatives and many others around the world to help change the face of capitalism by making it more socially conscious.

I study this kind of radical change in my research and teach my students about what it takes to succeed in implementing such change. The leaders of these initiatives have had to agitate to convince stakeholders of the need for change, innovate by developing new standards and certification systems, and orchestrate the diffusion of these changes to have an impact. What is different now is that the movement that they launched is gaining increased momentum, as influential mainstream leaders like Mr. Fink join the ranks.

Still, a great deal more needs to happen. Standards and measurement systems are only one part of the solution for changing corporate behaviors, and they are difficult to get right. But as long as we know about the assumptions used to develop the standards and remain open to refining them, we will have the kind of learning approach that will enable us to cautiously and constructively develop new accountability systems for companies.

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board exemplifies this learning approach. After extensive research regarding the aspects of social performance to which investors should have access in order to make informed investment decisions, it engaged in a public comment period, soliciting feedback from various stakeholders about the provisional standards it developed by sector. As such, it is iterating its assessment tools and engaging with individuals and entities across sectors to refine them and arrive at meaningful and useful standards.

Besides holding companies accountable, we also have to help them as they transition to pursuing social objectives alongside financial ones. Too few managers are familiar with fulfilling financial and social goals simultaneously, and there are few templates for developing organizational processes and systems to help them do so. Internally, organizations often struggle to allocate resources toward these different goals and to deal with the trade-offs that they face. I have observed that even large corporations renowned for their social responsibility still struggle to overcome this challenge.

The focus of my research has been social enterprises, which provide laboratories to learn about the joint pursuit of social and commercial objectives in organizations. In the arenas of microfinance and social enterprises that help train and mentor the long-term unemployed while generating revenue from sales, among many others, I have encountered organizations that have been able to sustainably pursue social and financial goals over time. What these organizations have in common is their ability to cultivate a hybrid culture committed both to their social mission and profitability. A willingness to develop this kind of culture in corporations is not enough to succeed. It requires revisiting and changing all the organizational processes and systems initially designed to pursue only financial goals.

Mr. Fink was right to take a stand with the CEOs of major companies. They have the chance to rise to the occasion and participate in the redesign of corporations. What is at stake is reshaping the face of capitalism as we know it. Historically, the corporate sector has focused mostly on profit maximization, and we as a society have paid a cost for such blind pursuit regardless of the social and environmental consequences, as the 2008 financial crisis and increasing inequalities have made clear.

This kind of systemic change, however, does not sit only on the shoulders of CEOs. Today, corporations that attempt to incorporate a social purpose frequently have to deal with competing market demands that still push them to focus exclusively on financial performance. We must take action to create an ecosystem within which companies are encouraged to pursue social goals along with profit. We all have a role to play, both in creating the demand-as consumers, shareholders, investors, policymakers, and activists-and in making the environment more conducive by agreeing on industry measurement standards, providing templates for supportive organizational processes and systems, training business leaders on why and how to pursue social goals along financial ones, and addressing legal limitations wherever they exist. The transformation of capitalism will not happen overnight, but there are actions that we can all take to make it possible.
Julie Battilana is the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where she is a member of the Social Enterprise Initiative, and the Alan L. Gleitsman Professor of Social Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, where she is also the founder and academic co-director of the Social Innovation and Change Initiative.

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How To Heed BlackRock's Call For Corporate Social Responsibility

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Because BlackRock manages more than $6 trillion in assets, Mr. Fink's announcement has the potential to help change companies' behaviors in big ways. But this will happen only if BlackRock and other large asset managers add social performance to their evaluations of companies.

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Carroll’s Corporate Social Responsibility
The CSR is a perfect example of the topics we covered in Chapter 3, with the four types of Social Responsibility to cover: Economic, Ethical, Philanthropic, and Legal. All four are considered to be essential for a company to survive.

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Chipotle, Taco Bell Update Management Roles
New updates were made when a new CEO is found for Chipotle, effective this coming March. Similar to all incoming executives, new managements have to be updated and created in the image the new CEO is trying to bring to the company.

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Brian Niccol has resigned from his role as Taco Bell CEO effectively immediately. Niccol will become CEO of Chipotle effective March 5, 2018. As a result of Niccol's departure, Julie Felss Masino, president, Taco Bell North America, and Liz Williams, president, Taco Bell International, will assume leadership of Yum! Brands Taco Bell Division in their current respective roles.

Niccol joined Taco Bell in 2011 and became president of the restaurant chain in 2015. His background also includes various leadership roles with Yum! Brands' Pizza Hut concept and, prior to that, with consumer goods company Proctor and Gamble. Back in November, Chipotle launched a search to hire a new CEO to succeed company founder Steve Ells, who is expected to become executive chairman of the Denver-based fast-casual restaurant chain.

"[Niccol's] expertise in digital technologies, restaurant operations and branding make him a perfect fit for Chipotle as we seek to enhance our customer experience, drive sales growth and make our brand more relevant. The board is confident that Brian's passion and skillset ideally position him to make the bold moves needed to improve operations and take the company to the next level, all while remaining true to our purpose and the values that are essential to our customers," Ells said in a statement announcing the hire.

Masino joined Taco Bell in January 2018 and as president is responsible for ensuring the brand continues to deliver same-store sales growth by driving innovation, new store development and a frictionless customer experience through digital and technology initiatives. Masino joined Taco Bell from Mattel and her background includes experience in the restaurant industry including Starbucks and Sprinkles Cupcakes.

As president of Taco Bell International, Liz Williams is responsible for the brand strategy and performance of the quick-service restaurant chain's international business. Prior to this role, Williams was the Taco Bell CFO. Before joining Taco Bell, Williams spent six years with The Boston Consulting Group and seven years at Dell Computer.

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Chipotle, Taco Bell Update Management Roles

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Brian Niccol has resigned from his role as Taco Bell CEO effectively immediately. Niccol will become CEO of Chipotle effective March 5, 2018. As a result of Niccol's departure, Julie Felss Masino, president, Taco Bell North America, and Liz Williams, president, Taco Bell International, will assume leadership of Yum!

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Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and the Changing Role of Building Managers
Another article that focuses on the changes some managerial roles will have to face with the upcoming changes in companies. More on the interest of technological advances, growth with certain mechanical achievements raises suspicion on whether or not they will eliminate jobs for actual people. When a study was conducted, they make note of several careers with the primary goals to fix and inspect equipment placed in buildings and large scale systems (city engineering). Out of the five studied, three grew with the times and only two saw a reduction in employment. To keep up with the growth, the demand for adaptable leaders and managers in the line of work is needed to help people grow rather than supervise.

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Building automation systems have been common for decades, providing comfort and achieving energy efficiency by managing HVAC, lighting and other systems. These on-premise technologies have made facility management a more productive, effective and enjoyable job.

Moreover, automation in buildings provides capabilities that aren't feasible for a human to perform effectively. This was true when Warren Johnson (founder of Johnson Controls) patented the thermostat in 1883. Johnson didn't like the disruptions in his classroom when janitors and other staff came in to check the temperature.

Across the broader economy, there continues to be concern that advanced automation technologies will destroy jobs. Among other key trends, many point to the "great decoupling," a term coined by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT, which refers to the deviation of productivity and wage growth. Until the 1980s, these two metrics grew hand in hand. Now, productivity continues to rise while wages are stagnant. Many believe technology and automation are to blame.

Since I wrote my last article on automation in buildings, which argued that these technologies would be a job creator in buildings, there have been a number of interesting papers on the broader topic of automation and jobs.

First, research and advisory firm Gartner highlighted the significant benefits of AI augmentation -- humans working with technology. Gartner notes that the impact is nonlinear: "Many significant innovations in the past have been associated with a transition period of temporary job loss, followed by recovery, then business transformation, and AI will likely follow this route."

Deloitte published a white paper that analyzed job changes in England and Wales over the past 144 years (since 1871) and the impact of technology. Deloitte's high-level findings are that technology has created many more jobs than it destroyed, saved Britons from "dull, repetitive, and dangerous work," and "lowered the cost of essentials, raising disposable incomes and creating new demand and jobs."

Are these wider economic trends relevant to the building and real estate industry? What does a similar analysis of job growth indicate?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes detailed employment data by job category. Recent editions of the Energy Information Administration's Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) include penetration rates for building automation systems (and other technologies). One can draw some conclusions by comparing these data sets, much as the Deloitte researchers did. (Note: BLS states that due to its collection methodology, year-over-year comparisons are not precise. That said, directionally they are indicative of changes in employment.)

A few BLS occupations were selected for this brief analysis: Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers (49-9021), Engineering Managers (11-9041), Security and Fire System Installers (49-2098), Elevator Installers and Repairers (47-4021), and Construction and Building Inspectors (47-4011). These are not the only roles within building management, but they are specific enough to buildings that some insights and conclusions can be made. BLS combines other key building and facility roles within larger employment buckets, making it difficult to identify trends within this industry.

Three of these positions have shown healthy growth in employment over the past 15 years. The number of HVAC mechanics and installers has increased from 197,930 in 2000 to 294,730 in 2016, a growth rate of 2.5 percent per year. Security and fire installation employment, a much smaller employment group, has grown more significantly, from 38,810 in 2000 to 67,700 in 2016 (a growth rate of 3.5 percent per year). Employment in construction and building inspection also has grown over this time, from 68,690 to 94,960 (a growth rate of 2 percent per year).

There are two relevant employment categories that have seen reductions in employment numbers. Architectural and Engineering Managers, which include occupations like Mechanical Engineering Director and Global Engineering Manager, have dropped from 242,280 in 2000 to 178,390 in 2016. The Elevator Installers and Repairers role has seen a slight decline from 25,100 jobs to 22,240. These are declines of 1.9 percent and .75 percent each year, respectively.

Architectural and engineering manager employment could be declining due to more outsourcing of facility management to roles like HVAC mechanics. Or, broader economic trends like the great recession could have impacted the total job count as corporations shed some auxiliary and support roles. The slight decline in elevator installation and repair may be due to increasingly reliable equipment that needs less maintenance and lasts longer.

CBECS does not align directly with these employment categories, but it does indicate that more buildings are being automated and equipped with technology. For example, the survey notes an increase in the penetration of "Energy Management and Control Systems," an analogue for a building automation system (BAS), from 9.9 percent of all commercial buildings in 1999, to 14.1 percent of buildings in 2012 (the most recent year of CBECS data).

At the same time, there has been a slight decline in HVAC maintenance, from 59.8 percent to 57.2 percent. With around 5.5 million commercial buildings in the U.S., a 2.6 percent decline means that many buildings no longer conduct routine maintenance. That alone should lead to a reduction in total HVAC employment, because it is a very manual service- and human-driven job. However, the exact opposite is happening: There are many more HVAC installers and maintainers.

At the same time, CBECS also reports that more buildings are cooling their floor space: The percentage of space that is not cooled has dropped from 23.6 percent in 1999 to 19.7 percent in 2012. And, the percentage of space that has 100 percent of the floor cooled has increased from 38.6 percent to 43 percent. Overall, it seems that the increase in HVAC penetration and the increase in BAS penetration are driving higher employment, while the reduction in HVAC maintenance may be due to more reliable equipment that requires less ongoing service.

Based on these reliable data sources, it appears that buildings are being automated and employment in the industry is growing. Moreover, beyond raw employment numbers, other key trends are starting to impact building operations. First, the roles themselves are changing.

In its Future of Work report, the World Economic Forum investigates the skills that will be required in the future for many different jobs. When looking at installation and maintenance jobs, the researchers note that the role "will see great productivity enhancements and strong growth in green jobs such as the installation, retrofitting, repair and maintenance of smart meters and renewable energy technologies in residential and office buildings, but -- at an aggregate level -- will also come face-to-face with the efficiency-saving and labour-substituting aspect of the Internet of Things."

The report also notes that while some tasks will be automated, others will simply become more analytical or change in other ways. It's safe to assume that with the substantial increase in data from buildings, many of the roles operating and maintaining them will become more data-driven.

Moreover, the International Facility Management Association and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors released last year the third edition of a report focusing on the talent gap in facility management. The high-level findings are that the industry needs an influx of young, new talent (more RICS members are over 70 than under 30).

In general, the role as practiced continues to be too tactical. Based on a survey of 2,500 facility managers, the report notes that the head of facility management role still spends almost 50 percent of his/her time on day-to-day tasks and only 30 percent on strategic planning. The report notes that occupant demands of the office are rising, a war for talent continues, and concerns like health and well-being are becoming top of mind.

Facilities management leaders (and their teams) will need to adapt to these expectations, which will change the role and responsibilities. The survey also notes that many respondents suggested that facilities management should be focused on "helping people to do work rather than managing service provision." It seems that more automation may help facility managers and their teams become more strategic and adapt to the changing expectations of the role.

Second, there is an emerging talent gap in facility management. Siemens recently said that it is having trouble filling factory maintenance jobs, which entail diagnosing problems in industrial machinery. Siemens representatives profiled in the article note that in the past, a technician could listen to a machine and quickly diagnose the problem. These days, it's rare to find employees with such a skill set, so automation and artificial intelligence could fill the gap while continuing to employ workers to make repairs and cultivate relationships with clients.

Facility management employment continues to grow, as does demand for advanced technology in buildings. A recent study commissioned by Dell and Intel found that 44 percent of employees think their office is not smart enough, and 57 percent believe that within five years, they will be working in a smart office. Dell and Intel include an IOT-enabled workplace in their definition of a smart office.

For now, it does not appear that automation will lead to significant job losses in the industry. However, facility and building managers need to address other, more critical issues, such as training employees to be prepared to use rapidly advancing technology and attracting more talent to the industry.

***

Joseph Aamidor is a senior product and market strategy consultant focused on smart buildings, IOT and energy. He helps startups and established industry players understand the smart buildings market, develop competitive strategy and forge partnerships. He previously served in senior product management roles at Lucid and Johnson Controls.

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Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and the Changing Role of Building Managers

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Building automation systems have been common for decades, providing comfort and achieving energy efficiency by managing HVAC, lighting and other systems. These on-premise technologies have made facility management a more productive, effective and enjoyable job. Moreover, automation in buildings provides capabilities that aren't feasible for a human to perform effectively.

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Mauboussin On The Future Of Active Management
In this article, the focus Mauboussin has on the potential for future management efforts, primarily active management and the role of investment managers. Because times are changing with the expansion of technology and the inclusion of investment is crucial for a company to survive and thrive, the managerial roles in companies are slowly shifting and accommodating to these changes. Because this article focuses on getting better access to opportunities that will help the company in the long run, investment managers are created in companies to help determine what will offer as a risk or reward.

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Michael Mauboussin is currently the Director of Research at BlueMountain Capital Management. Prior to his role at BlueMountain, Michael was Head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse and Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. He has also authored three books, and a bevy of articles for the Harvard Business Review, The Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, and other finance publications. Michael has been an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School since 1993, and has won the Dean's Award for Teaching excellence several times.

Kevin Harris from SumZero sat down with Michael to discuss value investing, active management, and the state of the market.

Kevin Harris, SumZero: What do you think is most misunderstood about the discipline of value investing today?

My sense is that there has been a simplistic association between value investing and the basic idea of buying statistically cheap stocks. While many famous value investors, including Ben Graham, favored cheap stocks, the idea that value investing is all about buying stocks with low price-to-book or price-to-earnings ratios was propelled by the Fama-French Michael Mauboussin, BlueMountain Capital Management: paper, published in 1992, on factors that are associated with excess returns. It's worth noting that GEICO, then a growth company, played a large role in the success of both Graham and his most famous student, Warren Buffett (Chairman and CEO at Berkshire Hathaway).

Charlie Munger, Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway, has said that all intelligent investing is value investing. At its core, value investing is buying something for less than what it's worth. The present value of future free cash flow determines value. The key is that sometimes the market's expectations for future free cash flow is too optimistic or pessimistic. Value investing takes advantage of mispriced expectations.

While cheap stocks do tend to have lower expectations than expensive ones, two mistakes can arise. The first is buying a statistically cheap stock that deserves to be even cheaper. That's a value trap. The second is shunning a statistically expensive stock that represents a good value.

Buffett, in part reflecting Munger's influence, has evolved from an investor looking solely for statistically cheap stocks to someone willing to pay more for quality and growth. Buffett has cited Graham and Phil Fisher as his big influences. Fisher was comfortable buying stocks of growth companies if he found the valuations reasonable.

Harris: Would you walk us through your take on the current state of active management? In your Jan. 2017 'Easy Games' article, you detail the broad shift from active to passive. What sort of inefficiencies or distortions in the market do you think are being caused by the relative decline in active management?

Mauboussin : This is a very rich topic that we could spend all day discussing. But perhaps I'll limit myself to a few comments.

First, participating in markets through index funds or other low-cost options makes sense for many investors. If you do not have the time or inclination to seek value, either directly in markets or through investment managers, indexing is a reasonable path.

Second, it stands to reason that not all investors can be passive. Active managers perform two vital functions: they promote price discovery-a fancy way to say they make prices largely efficient-and they provide liquidity. There's important academic work that shows these are valuable societal functions. So there will always be active management. The question is: how much is necessary?

Third, the follow up thought is that markets have to be sufficiently inefficient to lure active managers to do their job and there needs to be an offsetting benefit in the form of excess returns to compensate. Markets cannot be perfectly informationally efficient, a result shown nearly forty years ago. Lasse Pedersen, a professor of finance, has come up with the catchy phrase that markets have to be " efficiently inefficient."

Fourth, where does active management make sense? Essentially, you want to look for where there are inefficiencies. One proxy is the variance in returns for investors in a particular asset class. If the dispersion is extremely narrow, it is hard for an active manager to distinguish him or herself. If dispersion is wide, opportunities exist. So you have to ask an investment manager why they believe they can generate excess returns. It can be better access to investment opportunities, better information, or better analysis. But it's often being in the position to take advantage of the behavioral mistakes of others or mispricing as a result of technical factors.

Finally, there is emerging research on the impact indexing is having on markets. There are two areas worth monitoring closely, in my view. First, there is evidence that stocks that are actively held are more efficiently priced than those that are passively held. Second, we don't really know what the impact will be on liquidity. In the case of a material drawdown, we will see how stocks and bonds react. My suspicion is that there will be less liquidity in a period of stress than most academics and professionals anticipate.

Harris: What is your reaction to the rise of quantitative strategies versus the relative decline of more traditional discretionary 'value' strategies? Any particular thoughts on the rise of 'smart beta' products/ETFs?

Mauboussin : I should place myself in this discussion. I have a son who is a data scientist, so I have a lot of interest in quantitative strategies. I also teach a course in security analysis at Columbia Business School. And at BlueMountain we have both systematic and discretionary equity strategies. So I straddle both of these worlds.

We should start by noting that over time, the results from systematic and discretionary funds have been similar. You could make the case, based on your objectives, that a blend of the two may be better than either by itself.

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Mauboussin On The Future Of Active Management

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At its core, value investing is buying something for less than what it's worth. The present value of future free cash flow determines value. The key is that sometimes the market's expectations for future free cash flow is too optimistic or pessimistic.

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Lemonade Stand Parody: Lucy's Psychiatry Booth
Similar to the Management process we covered in Chapter 1, I noticed that Lucy Van Pelt oftentimes practice the four basic functions for her psychiatric stand that she uses throughout the comics: planning for more patients when the class is assigned essays, organizing her time and energy after school and during the weekends in the afternoon for when most students would need advice but seldom use hers, influencing her talents as a talkative “know-it-all” to help students see how life works from her perspective and convince them to tell others of her business, and controlling the situation by changing her fee for service when she accounts for “seasonal rates” to help reach her performance standards.

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Hello, everyone!

My name is Taye Yarde, and I am just delighted to be taking such an advanced class. This opportunity to take this class and get a degree is music to my ears, and  I hope to make this my forte as a career! I do enjoy tickling the ivories from time to time, but instead I shall be performing on a new set of keys, the keypad to be precise! When all is set and done, I plan to use this degree to get my Master's and become a Forensic Accountant. Pleased to meet you all!