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It turns out the most critical problem Dale Carnegie attempted to deal with – management of people in a business context – has certainly not been eradicated. Nearly half of all employees describe themselves as only partially engaged with their jobs, according to a study conducted in May of 1,500 employees nationwide by DCT and the metrics firm MSW Research, which is based in Lake Success, New York. Fewer than one-third of employees describe themselves as fully engaged with their work. (Inc.)
Visit http://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/dale-carnegie-centennial.html to view the full article online.
When you're getting something new going, the difference between success and failure is often a matter of time: how long you give it before you give up. Efforts that begin with high hopes inevitably hit a disappointing sag. It's Kanter's Law: "Everything can look like a failure in the middle." (Harvard Business Review)
Visit http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2012/10/12-guidelines-for-deciding-whe.html to view the full article online.
Diversity in the Workplace
A startling new report finds freshly graduated college women will likely face this hurdle when entering the work world: they're worth less than equally educated men. The American Association of University Women is releasing a new study that shows when men and women attend the same kind of college, pick the same major and accept the same kind of job, on average, the woman will still earn 82 cents to every dollar that a man earns. (NPR)
Visit http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/24/163536890/equal-pay-for-equal-work-not-even-college-helps-women to view the full article online.
International
EU commissioners have postponed plans to impose quotas for women on company boards. EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding was pushing for a vote on Tuesday to make it mandatory for companies to keep 40 percent of seats for women. (BBC News)
Visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20039540 to view the full article online.
Chaos in the Greek parliament following a row over the country's revised bailout plan brought fresh gloom to the eurozone as figures showed the currency union moving closer to recession. The Greek finance minister was forced to drop claims that he had secured a two-year extension for debt repayments and an agreement with creditors over €13.5bn (£10.9bn) of proposed austerity measures when he addressed MPs on Wednesday. (The Guardian)
Visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/24/greek-parliament-chaos-revised-bailout-plan to view the full article online.
Education
One of Milton Cofield’s goals in the classroom is to help his students relate the material he’s teaching to the real world. Cofield, the executive director of the undergraduate program at Tepper, says a typical lecture could include the "PowerPoints and lecturing that people hate," but he mixes up his lessons with the occasional dramatic reading from a Shakespeare play. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-12/favorite-professors-carnegie-mellons-milton-cofield#r=hpt-fs to view the full article online.
NBMBAA
The National Black MBA Association is dedicated to develop partnerships that result in the creation of intellectual and economic wealth in the black community. Support the organization with your donation and help to create the next generation of leaders through our scholarship and Leaders of Tomorrow programs.
Visit http://www.nbmbaa.org/Donations/Default.aspx to view the full article online.
Entrepreneurship
By now we’ve gotten used to the disruption that the rise of the social Web has created in the media industry, where it has upended traditional business models and allowed creators of content to connect directly with their audience. But that same wave of socially driven disruption is now moving through the rest of the economy, too – particularly in services that can be easily socialized, such as the hotel business, the taxi industry, or the education market. As that wave progresses, we’re seeing such companies as Airbnb, Uber, and Coursera run into more and more regulatory hurdles, but the writing is already on the wall: Service businesses that don’t use social features to lower barriers and increase efficiency will likely not survive long. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/airbnb-coursera-and-uber-the-rise-of-the-disruption-economy#r=hp-ls to view the full article online.
Less than two years after starting a wholesale and retail footwear business, Kyle Berner saw his entrepreneurial dreams come to a screeching halt. The April 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in a delayed shipment of about 10,000 pairs of flip-flops he was planning to package and ship to customers ahead of the busy summer season. (Wall Street Journal)
Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443854204578058940747086634.html to view the full article online.
The Economy
They aren't in poverty, but they are just a step away from falling into its clutches. More than 30 million Americans are living just above the poverty line. These near poor, often defined as having incomes of up to 1.5 times the poverty threshold, were supporting a family of four on no more than $34,500 last year. (CNN/Money)
Visit http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/24/news/economy/americans-poverty/index.html?iid=Lead to view the full article online.
In a campaign season often lacking in specifics, the two candidates have even managed to cover a lot of ground. If you’re an auto worker, Medicare recipient or small business owner, you’ve heard your concerns addressed head on. (Even if you didn’t necessarily like the answers.) But there were a number of pocket-book issues the candidates never gave much airtime to. (MarketWatch)
Visit http://www.marketwatch.com/story/3-finance-topics-the-romney-obama-debates-ignored-2012-10-22 to view the full article online.
Leadership
"Whip your thoroughbreds." That's the phrase I kept hearing from Jack Welch-era high potential managers hurtling up GE's global hierarchies. Brutally simple and simply brutal, this Welchian aphorism disproportionately drove top management behavior. The company found it got far greater value working its best people harder than by pushing its multitudes of "better than average" managers to work smarter. (Harvard Business Review)
Visit http://blogs.hbr.org/schrage/2012/10/the-coming-collapse-of-average.html to view the full article online.
Lifestyle
As flu season approaches, people soon will wake up to a tricky calculation: Should you drag yourself into work feeling awful? Or can you get away with staying home to heal? Staying in bed poses a risk of falling behind or being seen as a slacker. But showing up sick, and grossing out or infecting colleagues, can be worse, and a growing number of employers are setting policies to discourage it. (Wall Street Journal)
Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203406404578074643908621184.html to view the full article online.
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