4 Things That Keep Employees Loyal (Hint: It’s Not Money Or Perks): The opportunity to do great work. A decent, non-toxic manager. Decent people. Remember them?

4 Things That Keep Employees Loyal (Hint: It’s Not Money Or Perks)

LES MCKEOWN, INC. AUG. 1, 2013, 11:52 AM 3,287 2

You can ditch the esoteric interview questions; skip the outlandish benefits and uber-hip working conditions; and forget building an awesome brand. When it comes to hiring– and more importantly, keeping– great employees, not even paying well above market compensation guarantees success. In a recent survey of companies with the highest amount of employee turnover, guess which trailblazing exemplars of world-class employee-centricity came in second and fourth, respectively? None other than Google and Amazon. All of which just goes to show, as the Beatles once said, money can’t buy you love. If resource-rich employers like Wynn Resorts and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (#6 and #18 on the list of companies with the least loyal employees) can’t build loyalty in their workforce, what chance does the average, resource-constrained, small- and medium-sized business have? Well, the truth is, quite a lot. Despite the fact that most small business founder/owners feel that they are in a David and Goliath-like battle for talent with mega-employers, the reality is that great employees are all looking for an environment that any business, large or small can provide. Here are the four key ways to ensure that, so long as you’re paying at or near market compensation, your employees will remain engaged and loyal, irrespective of the size of your business: Read more of this post

Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Build Common Ground, and Reap Big Results

Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Build Common Ground, and Reap Big Results [Hardcover]

Morten Hansen (Author)

Publication Date: April 14, 2009

In Collaboration, author Morten Hansen takes aim at what many leaders inherently know: in today’s competitive environment, companywide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realized. In fact, most cross-unit collaborative efforts end up wasting time, money, and resources. How can managers avoid the costly traps of collaboration and instead start getting the results they need?
In this book, Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through “disciplined collaboration”– a practical framework and set of tools managers can use to:
· Assess when–and when not–to pursue collaboration across units to achieve goals
· Identify and overcome the four barriers to collaboration
· Get people to buy into the larger picture, even when they own only a small piece of it
· Be a “T-Shaped Manager,” collaborating across divisions while still working deeply in your own unit
· Create networks across the organization that are not large, but nimble and effective
Based on the author’s long-running research, in-depth case studies, and company interviews, Collaboration delivers practical advice and tools to help your organization collaborate–for real results. Read more of this post

The Innovation Mindset in Action: an illiterate woman from Tamil Nadu, India. Her story is at once heartbreaking and inspiring, showing that game changers can come from all walks of life, all over the world

The Innovation Mindset in Action: Shantha Ragunathan

by Vijay Govindarajan and Srikanth Srinivas  |   9:00 AM August 1, 2013

This January, we met Shantha Ragunathan, an illiterate woman from Kodapattinam, a remote village in Tamil Nadu, India. Her story is at once heartbreaking and inspiring, showing that game changers can come from all walks of life, all over the world. At six, Shantha lost her parents. By her twenties, she was stuck in a seemingly dark pit without a glimmer of hope: with two children and little financial support from her husband, she could not afford even one square meal a day. Although she was poor in resources, she possessed the innovation mindset shared by many game changers: they see and act on opportunities, use “and” thinkingto resolve tough dilemmas and break through compromises, and employ their resourcefulness to power through obstacles. Innovators maintain a laser focus on outcomes, avoid getting caught in theactivity trap, and proactively “expand the pie” to make an impact. Regardless of where they start, innovators persist till they successfully change the game. Read more of this post

Apprenticeship Good for Ben Franklin Closes Skills Gap

Apprenticeship Good for Ben Franklin Closes Skills Gap

Toby Wofford learned his way around United Tool and Mold Inc. maintaining machines his last two years of high school in Easley, South Carolina. Now he’s graduating to an advanced apprenticeship program that includes free classes at a nearby technical college. The United Tool apprenticeship is one of more than 500 such programs added in South Carolina since 2008. They range from certified nursing assistants in senior-care facilities to pharmacy technicians at CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS) These federally registered programs are part of an effort by states to adapt such on-the-job training to close a skills gap in technical jobs. “It’s the best of both worlds,” 18-year-old Wofford said in an interview at the shop, which makes and repairs molds for plastic parts such as auto-fuel tanks. “You get the on-hand experience, but you also need the knowledge of education from college.” The apprentice system, which helped founding fathers Benjamin Franklin become a printer and John Hancock learn silversmithing, faded in the U.S. during the next 200 years until it was concentrated primarily in construction trades, said Joseph Fuller, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School in Boston who is studying work-training programs. Read more of this post

The eighth generation brothers who run Aspall Cyder see their product as a rival to champagne and talk about the black art of cider-making and taking advice from maharajahs.

CORE BUSINESS

ARTICLE | 1 AUGUST, 2013 12:52 PM | BY JEREMY HAZLEHURST

There was a lovely moment just after I’d sat down with the Chevallier Guild brothers when Barry was having a little trouble with a coffee pot. Henry walked over to help out and, as they both grappled with the plunger, it was a rather sweet scene of fraternal cooperation: “It’s got a bit…”, “Just press the…” “How do you…?” After some delicate coaxing, the blockage was removed, the handle depressed and the coffee was served. Some siblings in family businesses have fractious, antagonistic relationships, but it’s blindingly obvious that these two are totally and utterly at home in each others’ company. You can hardly imagine them not working together. Read more of this post

Getting people on and off an airplane quickly is so complicated that even an astrophysicist couldn’t figure it out

Mysteries of boarding bedevil airlines

BY DAVID KOENIG AP

AUG 1, 2013

DALLAS – Getting people on and off an airplane quickly is so complicated that even an astrophysicist couldn’t figure it out. The astrophysicist, Jason Steffen of Northwestern University, normally contemplates things such as axionlike particles. But after waiting in one boarding line too many, he turned to the mysteries of airline seating. “I thought there had to be a better way,” he says. So, after a series of calculations, he deduced that the best system would be a combination of filling window seats first, then middle and aisle ones, while spacing the boarding passengers two rows apart. There was just one problem — passengers would have to board in precise order. Good luck with that. “Well,” Steffen observes, “I understand why airline people aren’t calling me.” But the search for the perfect boarding process goes on. Read more of this post

Our Hotter, Wetter, More Violent Future

Our Hotter, Wetter, More Violent Future

Earth’s atmosphere seems to have found a way to get back at the human race. For almost three centuries, we humans have been filling the air with carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Now, it turns out, the climate change these emissions have wrought is turning people against one another. So says a review, published today, of 60 studies on how climate change helps spark conflict throughout the world. The researchers found a surprisingly close link between climate change and civil wars, riots, invasions and even personal violence such as murder, assault and rape. Rising temperatures are especially provocative. A shift toward greater warmth of one standard deviation caused personal violence to increase by 2.5 percent and intergroup conflict by 24 percent. (One standard deviation varies from place to place; in an African country, for example, it could amount to a warming of 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit for a year.) Read more of this post

N.Y. Resort Owners Charged With $96 Million Ponzi Fraud

N.Y. Resort Owners Charged With $96 Million Ponzi Fraud

A money manager and a real estate developer already facing a regulator’s fraud lawsuit were charged with running a $96 million Ponzi scheme and diverting the proceeds to their New York beachfront resort. Brian R. Callahan, 43, and his brother-in-law Adam J. Manson, 41, were charged in a 24-count indictment unsealed today in federal court in Central Islip, New York. They pleaded not guilty and were released on bond. The men are accused of telling investors that their money was going into hedge funds and other investment vehicles while actually much of it was going to the unprofitable 117-unit Panoramic View Resort & Residences in Montauk. Read more of this post

Nicotine-addicted turtle smokes half a pack of cigarettes a day

Nicotine-addicted turtle smokes half a pack of cigarettes a day

Thursday, August 1, 2013 – 16:39

AsiaOne

Several Chinese news programmes ran reports of a turtle in Changchun who smokes ten cigarettes a day. The reptile picked up the dirty habit when its owner flipped the animal to remove a thorn from the animal’s underbelly. To prevent the turtle from snapping his jaws, the man – who is a chef – put his cigarette in the turtle’s mouth. From then on it was hooked. The turtle makes chirping noises when it wants smokes or walks over to its owner when he’s puffing away. The owner said he’s trying to get his pet to quit, not due to concern for the turtle’s health but because he’s shelling out too much on tobacco.

Education: You can’t improve by sticking with what works

Education: You can’t improve by sticking with what works

In a book, What’s the Use of Lectures?, Mr Donald Bligh notes that lectures have been compared to reading and independent study, projects, discussion and audio and video learning. None of the comparators have been shown to be more effective in transmitting information.

5 HOURS 34 MIN AGO

In a book, What’s the Use of Lectures?, Mr Donald Bligh notes that lectures have been compared to reading and independent study, projects, discussion and audio and video learning. None of the comparators have been shown to be more effective in transmitting information. In other words, reading and independent study are just as good as listening to a lecture. Video delivery of content is just as good as a live lecture. Numerous studies have not shown that lectures are better than any of the other forms of education, but the converse is also the case. Read more of this post

Can something be so uncool that it’s actually cool? ‘Uncool’ Cool Japan Video Goes Viral

August 2, 2013, 8:29 AM

‘Uncool’ Cool Japan Video Goes Viral

By Joelle Metcalfe

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has never been known as a particularly hip place — even though it’s in charge of the government’s “Cool Japan” push to promote trendy industries like anime, fashion, and Japanese cuisine overseas. But a home-made Cool Japan video shot by two ministry officials and uploaded to YouTube last month has attracted so much criticism that it’s gone viral, prompting Japan’s online community to ask: Can something be so uncool that it’s actually cool? Read more of this post