Too much of a good thing: Leaders need to learn to beware of their strengths

Too much of a good thing: Leaders need to learn to beware of their strengths

Jun 8th 2013 |From the print edition

IT IS only natural for leaders to try to make the most of their strengths. The theory of comparative advantage directs people, as well as countries and firms, to focus on what they are good at. Management experts have tended to concur: one of the bestselling business books of recent years is called “Now Discover Your Strengths”, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton. When business schools (and indeed business columnists) profile bosses, they often assume that more is better. But is this right? Three more recent books express some doubts. In “Fear Your Strengths”, Robert Kaplan and Robert Kaiser argue that “what you are best at could be your biggest problem.” Forcefulness can become bullying; decisiveness can turn into pigheadedness; niceness can develop into indecision. Read more of this post

Deluded bosses: Who’s behind me? The powerful overestimate the support of underlings

Deluded bosses: Who’s behind me? The powerful overestimate the support of underlings

Jun 8th 2013 |From the print edition

HISTORY is littered with powerful people undone by hubris. Julius Caesar should have ignored the cheers of the Roman crowd and paid heed to the soothsayer. The late Steve Jobs overplayed his hand at Apple as a young man and was kicked out of the company he founded. And then there was Jimmy Cayne.

When Mr Cayne walked out of Bear Stearns for the last time, having been eased out as boss of the ailing bank, he claimed there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Through the tears, he wistfully recalls, heart-broken bankers sent him on his way with a standing ovation. This is not how his staff remember it. So disliked was he that according to “House of Cards”, a book by William Cohan, underlings would ask in meetings: “Is Jimmy staying on? [Because] we’re not coming back for another year of this shit.” Read more of this post

The Hot New M.B.A.: Supply-Chain Management; More Schools Are Ramping Up Their Programs, Adding Majors and Concentrations as Employer Demand Grows

Updated June 5, 2013, 7:46 p.m. ET

The Hot New M.B.A.: Supply-Chain Management

More Schools Are Ramping Up Their Programs, Adding Majors and Concentrations as Employer Demand Grows

By MELISSA KORN

Call it a problem of supply and demand.

With global operations becoming more complex, companies in manufacturing, retail and technology—and the consulting firms that service them—are scrambling to hire people with supply-chain expertise. But these experts are hard to come by.

Sensing growing demand, more than a half-dozen universities have recently introduced undergraduate majors, M.B.A. concentrations and even entire degree programs dedicated to procurement, inventory management and global supply-chain strategy. Read more of this post

Humanities Fall From Favor; Far Fewer Harvard Students Express Interest in Field With Weak Job Prospects

June 6, 2013, 12:15 a.m. ET

Humanities Fall From Favor

Far Fewer Harvard Students Express Interest in Field With Weak Job Prospects

By JENNIFER LEVITZ and DOUGLAS BELKIN

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—The humanities division at Harvard University, for centuries a standard-bearer of American letters, is attracting fewer undergraduates amid concerns about the degree’s value in a rapidly changing job market.

A university report being released Thursday suggests the division aggressively market itself to freshmen and sophomores, create a broader interdisciplinary framework to retain students and build an internship network to establish the value of the degree in the workforce. Read more of this post

Former England cricketer Paul Collingwood lost more than £300,000 of life savings in risky unregulated investments; Many unregulated schemes promise generous upfront tax breaks and the promise of double-digit returns

Former cricketer Paul Collingwood’s investment dreams end in ashes

The former England cricketer Paul Collingwood and his wife are suing their financial adviser, claiming that he lost more than £300,000 of their life savings in risky unregulated investments.

The victims of advisers who sell risky financial schemes include top sports stars Photo: REUTERS

By Emma Simon

7:00AM BST 08 Jun 2013

They have issued a High Court writ against their adviser, Roderick Langham, who worked for Cheshire-based Sigma Wealth Management, which advised a number of other sports stars and has since gone into liquidation.

Mr Collingwood said he had instructed the firm to invest his money for retirement, not gamble it on racy unregulated ventures. Read more of this post

Fiduciary Duty to Cheat? Stock Market Super-Star Jim Chanos Reveals the Perverse New Mindset of Financial Fraudsters

Fiduciary Duty to Cheat? Stock Market Super-Star Jim Chanos Reveals the Perverse New Mindset of Financial Fraudsters

April 1, 2013  |

Editor’s note: This article is the first in a new AlterNet series, “The Age of Fraud.”

Hustlers. Cheaters. Crooks. American business has always had them, and sometimes they’ve been punished. But today, those who cheat and put the rest of us at risk are often getting off scot-free. The recent admission of Attorney General Eric Holder [3] that systemically dangerous megabanks may escape prosecution because of their size has opened a new chapter in fraud history. If you know your company won’t be prosecuted, a perverse logic says that you shouldcheat and make as much money for shareholders as you can.

Jim Chanos is one of America’s best-known short-sellers, famed for his early detection [4] of Enron’s fraudulent practices. In deciding which companies to short (short-sellers make their money when the price of a stock or security goes down), Chanos acts as a kind of financial detective, scrutinizing companies for signs of overvaluation and shady practices that fool outsiders into tlhinking that they are prospering when they may be on shaky financial footing. Chanos teaches a class at Yale on the history of financial fraud, instructing students in how to look for signs of cheating and criminal activity. I caught up with Chanos in his New York office to ask what’s driving the current era of rampant fraud, who is to blame, what can be done, and the ways in which fraud costs us financially and socially. Read more of this post

Indian promoters can learn a lot from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger — and finance has very little to do with it

Business Lessons From Buffett

Indian promoters can learn a lot from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger — and finance has very little to do with it

N MAHALAKSHMI

Barnett Helzberg was at New York’s Plaza Hotel, when he heard a woman holler, “Warren Buffett!” He spun around and yes, it really was. Helzberg did not waste the opportunity — he introduced himself and told Buffett he owned a company that satisfied the “acquisition criteria” laid out by him in the Berkshire Hathaway annual report (Buffett has been listing his acquisition criteria in the annual report for over three decades now). The billionaire investor told him to send across the information. Having sent the details of his company Helzberg Diamonds, he soon found himself in Buffett’s office at Omaha. Buffett looked at him and said, “Well, this will be the fastest deal in history.” When a perplexed Helzberg asked about due diligence, Buffett replied, “I can smell these things Read more of this post

Akio Yamada, who is the CEO of MIRAI Industry, makes the company ‘Paradise of employees’; Yamada’s main philosophy, “Employees are not machines.”

Case study: Akio Yamada, who is the CEO of MIRAI Industry, makes the company ‘Paradise of employees’

June, 2011

< Akio Yamada, who is the CEO of MIRAI Industry, makes the company ‘Paradise of employees’ >

Eng. Jinhyung Park

What do you consider when you choose a company for getting a job? The company which gives you no overworks? The company which guarantees retirement age? The company which gives much of money? It is so hard to choose one. But, there’s a company which is fulfilling everything for employees. It is Mirai Industry Corporation. It has been chosen the greatest work place in the survey in Japan. Now, I will introduce this company for the reader who wants to manage a small company or studies business administration. Read more of this post