Leading by Letting Go

Leading by Letting Go

by Rob Markey  |   11:00 AM December 25, 2013

If you are running a large company anywhere in the world, you have almost certainly asked yourself some version of this question: “How can we get tens of thousands of employees to deliver memorable customer experiences that enhance our brand, all at a reasonable cost?” Read more of this post

AK47 Creator Kalashnikov Should Have Made Farm Tools

Kalashnikov Should Have Made Farm Tools

Mikhail Kalashnikov, who died yesterday at the age of 94, once designed and built a lawnmower for his own use: Mass-produced mowers weren’t available in the Soviet Union. Oh, and he also designed the world’s most widely used assault rifle. A lot of the encomiums and obituaries on Kalashnikov have missed the ironies of a man who became a living symbol of the state and political system that ruined his family. Now, as President Vladimir Putin brings back some of the Soviet era’s distinctive features — such as state domination of the economy, censorship and the exile of dissidents — the Russian army is preparing to take on the fifth-generation Kalashnikov rifle, the AK-12. Read more of this post

What 21 Extremely Successful People Were Doing At Age 25

What 21 Extremely Successful People Were Doing At Age 25

VIVIAN GIANG AND MAX NISEN DEC. 24, 2013, 8:00 AM 458,929 6

Some people know what they want to do from an early age and focus on it relentlessly.Others are driven enough to reinvent themselves, changing careers and industries, and continuously push until they find the thing that works. Billionaire Mark Cuban, for example, faced hardship when he first started, writing in “How To Win At The Sport Of Business“ that “when I got to Dallas, I was struggling — sleeping on the floor with six guys in a three-bedroom apartment.” On the other hand, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was a Xerox salesman dreaming of good coffee. As a reminder that the path to success is not always linear, we’ve highlighted what Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and 19 other fascinating and successful people were doing at age 25. Read more of this post

The good people in our midst; They may be flawed, but their attempts at reaching something high and noble, no matter how grand or how small, is an inspiration and a comfort

Updated: Wednesday December 25, 2013 MYT 7:29:32 AM

The good people in our midst

BY AZMI SHAROM

They may be flawed, but their attempts at reaching something high and noble, no matter how grand or how small, is an inspiration and a comfort.

MY Students Union building in Sheffield University was called the Nelson Mandela building. There was a photo of the man along with a small write-up on his struggle near the entrance of the union. The picture showed a heavy set person, with a tough face bordering on thuggish. Read more of this post

What Costco can teach you about cash; Mastering the cash conversion cycle can speed your company’s growth

What Costco can teach you about cash

December 24, 2013: 5:00 AM ET

Mastering the cash conversion cycle can speed your company’s growth.

By Verne Harnish

FORTUNE — Every business can learn an important lesson from Costco. The fast-growing warehouse retailer did $103 billion in sales in the fiscal year ending in September, with pre-tax earnings of $3 billion. Membership fees brought in $2.3 billion — equal to about 75% of its profit. Read more of this post

WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them

WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them Hardcover

by Richard S. Grossman  (Author)

In recent years, the world has been rocked by major economic crises, most notably the devastating collapse of Lehman Brothers, the largest bankruptcy in American history, which triggered the breathtakingly destructive sub-prime disaster. What sparks these vast economic calamities? Why do our economic policy makers fail to protect us from such upheavals?  In Wrong, economist Richard Grossman addresses such questions, shining a light on the poor thinking behind nine of the worst economic policy mistakes of the past 200 years, missteps whose outcomes ranged from appalling to tragic. Grossman tells the story behind each misconceived economic move, explaining why the policy was adopted, how it was implemented, and its short- and long-term consequences. In each case, he shows that the main culprits were policy makers who were guided by ideology rather than economics. For instance, Wrong looks at how America’s unfounded fear of a centralized monetary authority caused them to reject two central banks, condemning the nation to wave after wave of financial panics. He describes how Britain’s blind commitment to free markets, rather than to assisting the starving in Ireland, led to one of the nineteenth century’s worst humanitarian tragedies- the Irish famine. And he shows how Britain’s reestablishment of the gold standard after World War I, fuelled largely by a desire to recapture its pre-war dominance, helped to turn what would otherwise have been a normal recession into the Great Depression. Grossman also explores the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, Japan’s lost decade of the 1990s, the American subprime crisis, and the present European sovereign debt crisis. Economic policy should be based on cold, hard economic analysis, Grossman concludes, not on an unquestioning commitment to a particular ideology. Wrong shows what happens when this sensible advice is ignored. Read more of this post

Book Review on Wrong: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn From Them by Richard Grossman

Book Review: ‘Wrong,’ by Richard S. Grossman

In addition to monetary reparations, Germany after World War I was required to fork over 120,000 sheep and 10,000 goats.

ROGER LOWENSTEIN

Dec. 25, 2013 4:01 p.m. ET

Why is economic policy so often wrong? This is the question that Richard S. Grossman, an economics professor at Wesleyan University, means to get at in his beguiling study of nine economic-policy disasters. His writing is every bit as clear as his title—”Wrong: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn From Them.” Naturally, there can’t be a definitive answer to the question Mr. Grossman poses, but his thesis provides a good start: Policy goes off track when it is based on “ideology” rather than on “cold, hard, economic analysis.” Read more of this post

Everything connects to everything: Regardless of which side of the mirror you stand, another you is facing back

Everything connects to everything

Regardless of which side of the mirror you stand, another you is facing back.

Dec 26,2013

*The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.
by Nahm Yoon-ho

As the saying goes, if things go well, you deserve credit, and if things go wrong, you blame the ancestors. It describes how shallow a person can be, depending on the outcome.  Read more of this post

Conflict Strategies for Nice People

Conflict Strategies for Nice People

by Liane Davey  |   12:00 PM December 25, 2013

Do you value friendly relations with your colleagues? Are you proud of being a nice person who would never pick a fight?  Unfortunately, you might be just as responsible for group dysfunction as your more combative team members. That’s because it’s a problem when you shy away from open, healthy conflict about the issues. If you think you’re “taking one for the team” by not rocking the boat, you’re deluding yourself. Read more of this post

4 Clever Ways To Connect With Powerful People: Interview them, Write about them, Do them a favor, Make yourself interesting

4 Clever Ways To Connect With Powerful People

DORIE CLARK, BRAZEN LIFE

DEC. 25, 2013, 9:10 AM 2,904 1

Would you like to have a famous author, prominent entrepreneur, or well-heeled venture capitalist in your network? Of course. But they almost always appear out of reach. Unless your cousin went to college with Malcolm Gladwell or your dad spent his teens spinning records with Richard Branson, it may seem like there’s no way into their inner circles. Some people try anyway, sending industry leaders “cold call” emails with blithely optimistic requests: Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Could I pick your brain for an hour? Maybe we can schedule lunch? Those messages get ignored, and for good reason: they’re insulting to any successful, busy person. It’s not arrogance that prompts people to decline invitations; it’s the only way they can cope. No one has an hour, a half hour or even 10 minutes to spare on a stranger who doesn’t have the sense to lead with a value proposition. The real question is, what can you offer someone who’s better-known or more famous than you are? Here are four suggestions for how to get noticed: Read more of this post

55 Brilliant Louis C.K. Quotes That Will Make You Laugh And Think

55 Brilliant Louis C.K. Quotes That Will Make You Laugh And Think

OCT. 25, 2013

By NICO LANG

Louis C.K. is often compared to Woody Allen (whose new movie he’s even starring in), but to me, C.K. is this generation’s George Carlin, a savagely funny comedian who isn’t afraid to touch on real issues. Carlin was something of a people’s philosopher, who just happened to swear a lot, and C.K. has touched on issues ranging from politics, environmentalism, consumption, race, class, education and masturbation, one of his personal favorite subjects. He’s also just about the only male comedian I know who deals with sexual assault well. Louis C.K. just gets it. Here’s 55 of his greatest quotes, presented in no particular order. Read more of this post

Since starting her numerology business, Holistic Healing Mind, in September last year, clients have flocked to Brenda Tan mainly by word of mouth paying S$168 an hour asking for help in all aspects of their lives

Doing business by numbers

SINGAPORE — Armed with pencil and paper, a calculator and a deck of cards, Ms Brenda Tan aims to deconstruct a person’s psyche to not only find out what makes him tick, but also how to make him tick faster and better.

BY FRANCIS KAN –

5 HOURS 48 MIN AGO

SINGAPORE — Armed with pencil and paper, a calculator and a deck of cards, Ms Brenda Tan aims to deconstruct a person’s psyche to not only find out what makes him tick, but also how to make him tick faster and better. Read more of this post

Include ‘them’ in ‘our’ network of relationships

Include ‘them’ in ‘our’ network of relationships

Only two weeks ago, I attended a particular event as a PhD student. It was a seminar paying tribute to John Gumperz, one of the founders of modern sociolinguistics, who had passed away in March.

BY LUKE LU –

5 HOURS 43 MIN AGO

Only two weeks ago, I attended a particular event as a PhD student. It was a seminar paying tribute to John Gumperz, one of the founders of modern sociolinguistics, who had passed away in March. While there might be some truth in academics and our ivory towers, the topics discussed on this occasion were wholly relevant to Singapore society today. Read more of this post

Vitaliy Katsenelson: My Investor Holiday Reading List

My Investor Holiday Reading List, Part 1

23 DEC 2013 – VITALIY KATSENELSON

The thing I love the most about investing is learning. Investing is a never-ending, open-ended, multidisciplinary learning endeavor. You can always get better. Just like a shark that has to keep moving to live (breathe), an investor has to keep learning and improving to survive. Books are one important learning tool. In this and my next two columns, I’ll share with you an abbreviated list of books that have helped me along the way and may do the same for you. Read more of this post