What do millionaires regret? Super successful business bosses reveal the things they would change if they could

What do millionaires regret?

February 12, 2014

Caroline James

Super successful business bosses reveal the things they would change if they could.

Every businessperson makes mistakes. David Yuile’s cost him $1.3 million in a day. Read more of this post

What do millionaires regret? Super successful business bosses reveal the things they would change if they could

What do millionaires regret?

February 12, 2014

Caroline James

Super successful business bosses reveal the things they would change if they could.

Every businessperson makes mistakes. David Yuile’s cost him $1.3 million in a day.

The chief executive of telecommunications company AAPT jointly started a CRM consultancy in London in the mid-1990s. Read more of this post

Seeking Their Fortune: The Career Path for Top Executives in Big Companies

Seeking Their Fortune: The Career Path for Top Executives in Big Companies

Feb 11, 2014

Executives in the highest ranks of management have become increasingly diverse in recent years, and the number of lifelong employees has continued to decline. At the same time, the recession has “reversed two key trends, increasing both average age and length of tenure. Read more of this post

Another JPMorgan Banker Dies, 37 Year Old Executive Director Of Program Trading

Another JPMorgan Banker Dies, 37 Year Old Executive Director Of Program Trading

Tyler Durden on 02/12/2014 11:09 -0500

Ordinarily we would ignore the news of another banker’s death – after all these sad events happen all the time – if it wasn’t for several contextual aspects of this most recent passage. First, the death in question, as reported by the Stamford Daily Voice is that of Ryan Henry Crane, a Harvard graduate, who is survived by his wife, son and parents at the very young age of 37. Second, Ryan Henry Crane was formerly employed by JPMorgan – a bank which was featured prominently in the news as recently as two weeks ago when another of its London-based employees committed suicide by jumping from the top floor of its Canary Wharf building. Third: Crane was an Executive Director in JPM’s Global Program Trading desk, founded in 1999 by an ex-DE Shaw‘er, a function of the firm which is instrumental to preserving JPM’s impeccable and (so far in 2013) flawless trading record of zero trading losses. Read more of this post

5 Famous Entrepreneurs Who Learned From Their First Spectacular Failures; Feeling like a failure? So did these entrepreneurs–before they went on to revolutionize their industries.

5 FAMOUS ENTREPRENEURS WHO LEARNED FROM THEIR FIRST SPECTACULAR FAILURES

FEELING LIKE A FAILURE? SO DID THESE ENTREPRENEURS–BEFORE THEY WENT ON TO REVOLUTIONIZE THEIR INDUSTRIES.

BY STEPHANIE VOZZA

Most new businesses fail–that means most entrepreneurs and CEOs fail right along with them. What makes one person pack up his desk and go home while another shakes it off and tries again? Read more of this post

Why The New York Times Hired A Biology Researcher As Its Chief Data Scientist

 WHY THE NEW YORK TIMES HIRED A BIOLOGY RESEARCHER AS ITS CHIEF DATA SCIENTIST

TO HELP MAKE SENSE OF THE MASSIVE TROVES OF DATA PRODUCED BY PEOPLE CLICKING AROUND ITS WEBSITE, THE TIMES MADE A (VERY) NONTRADITIONAL HIRE–CHRIS WIGGINS, A BIOLOGY RESEARCHER WITH A PHD IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS. IF YOU CAN MAP THE HUMAN GENOME, MAYBE YOU CAN EVEN FIX JOURNALISM.

BY REBECCA GREENFIELD

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It doesn’t come as a huge surprise that the New York Times has hired a chief data scientist. Even 162-year-old media companies know that technology will play a huge role in the future of journalism. And, despite its age, the Times hasn’t shied away from digital innovation. What’s surprising, however, is that the new hire, Chris Wiggins, has spent the last 10 years steeped in biology research. Read more of this post

Expert on quest to find out secrets of successful leaders

Expert on quest to find out secrets of successful leaders

Wednesday, Feb 12, 2014

Mok Fei Fei

The Straits Times

High-octane conversations with Wall Street players or the wielders of power in the White House are all in a day’s work for leadership expert D. Michael Lindsay. Read more of this post

Whatever Happened to ‘Every Man a King’? How we can “make haves out of the have-nots without taking it away from the haves.”

Whatever Happened to ‘Every Man a King’?

FEB. 11, 2014

Thomas B. Edsall

A passionate group of labor economists has taken up a cause championed 40 years ago by the lateSenator Russell Long of Louisiana: to turn every worker into a capitalist.

Long, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1966 to 1981, inherited a populist commitment from his father, Huey Long, the Louisiana governor who famously campaigned on the slogan “Every Man a King.” Read more of this post

Three things Bill Gates wishes he could have done 20 years ago

Three things Bill Gates wishes he could have done 20 years ago

By Max Nisen @MaxNisen February 10, 2014

The Bill Gates of 2014 is very different than the Gates of 1994. Then, his sole focus was building Microsoft into a software and technology behemoth. Now he’s only just stepping back into a prominent role after years focused on one of the world’s most significant charitable foundations. Read more of this post

What America’s most controversial clothing CEO can teach us about world trade

What America’s most controversial clothing CEO can teach us about world trade

By Tim Fernholz @timfernholz February 11, 2014

Dov Charney, CEO of US clothing retailer American Apparel, does not have a great reputation. Whether it’s the employee harassment lawsuits, the racy ads or that time he masturbated in front of a reporter, Charney’s over-the-top style has obscured his company, known for its pricey but not fancy clothes made in Los Angeles by workers earning more than minimum wage. Read more of this post

Here she comes again: How Dolly Parton became one of the world’s richest entertainers

Fiona Smith Columnist

Here she comes again: How Dolly Parton became one of the world’s richest entertainers

Published 12 February 2014 08:53, Updated 12 February 2014 13:40

Parton’s appearance has always been a selling point.Photo: MCT

One of the best decisions Dolly Parton ever made was to turn down The King. That’s right, she said “no” to Elvis Presley back in the 1970s, when he was keen to record one of her songs. Read more of this post

8 Things The Most Successful People Do That Make Them Great

FEBRUARY 11, 2014 by ERIC BARKER

8 Things The Most Successful People Do That Make Them Great

There’s A Right Way To Learn

Want to be more successful? Actually, that’s not ambitious enough — want to be the best?

I do. So I called my friend Daniel Coyle, author of the best books on getting better at anything: The Talent Code and The Little Book of Talent.

Dan knows that the “10,000 hour rule” is nice but you need to align your effort with the way your brain was designed to learn. Read more of this post

Don’t doom your startup to failure — know your centers of influence

Don’t doom your startup to failure — know your centers of influence

BY ANDY BEAL 
ON FEBRUARY 11, 2014

It’s a common refrain: focus on building a great product and your startup’s reputation will take care of itself. Sorry, that’s a Silicon Valley fairy tale. While a great product or service is important, if you don’t take care of your brand’s stakeholders, you’ll hit the end of your runway before you can say, “fully funded on Kickstarter!” Read more of this post

Company Culture Is Part of Your Business Model

Company Culture Is Part of Your Business Model

by Jim Dougherty  |   9:00 AM February 13, 2014

A few years back, I was waiting for the light to change at 51^st Street and Fifth Avenue in NYC.  As I stood there, an elderly south Asian man came up next to me with a cart loaded with breakfast food that he was delivering to a meeting. When the light changed we both moved forward.  As he pushed the cart, he did not see a small gap at the edge of the sidewalk. His cart wheels got stuck. He continued to push, the cart toppled over, and the food (still in its wrappers) spread all over the road. Read more of this post

A Star Is Born: U.S. Scores Fusion-Power Breakthrough; Experimental Reaction Yields Energy, but Sustainability Still Proves Elusive

A Star Is Born: U.S. Scores Fusion-Power Breakthrough

Experimental Reaction Yields Energy, but Sustainability Still Proves Elusive

GAUTAM NAIK

Updated Feb. 12, 2014 6:13 p.m. ET

U.S. scientists replicated the power of the sun, if only for a fleeting moment, creating a miniature star that has rekindled hopes that nuclear fusion could one day offer a source of cheap and boundless energy on Earth. Read more of this post

Make Your Best Customers Even Better

Make Your Best Customers Even Better

by Eddie Yoon, Steve Carlotti, and Dennis Moore

Just over a year ago, managers at Kraft believed that their Velveeta brand had only moderate growth prospects. With the consumer migration toward natural and organic products, sales of Velveeta—a processed, unrefrigerated “cheese food”—had languished. The customers who did buy it typically used it once or twice a year, usually to make a party dip. But as we began working with Kraft and analyzing supermarket scanner and consumer panel data, we found a hard-core group of Velveeta fans. They constituted 10% of buyers but accounted for 30% to 40% of revenue and more than 50% of profits. In focus groups, these buyers—whom we dubbed superconsumers—said that they think of Velveeta as superior cheese. They love the way it melts smoothly and easily, and they have myriad uses for it, ones that range far beyond dips (one person even claimed to use a little when making fudge). After we finished questioning the superconsumers, they traded recipes, e-mails, and phone numbers with one another—building friendships around their shared passion for Velveeta. Read more of this post

Manage Your Work, Manage Your Life

Manage Your Work, Manage Your Life

by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

Work/life balance is at best an elusive ideal and at worst a complete myth, today’s senior executives will tell you. But by making deliberate choices about which opportunities they’ll pursue and which they’ll decline, rather than simply reacting to emergencies, leaders can and do engage meaningfully with work, family, and community. They’ve discovered through hard experience that prospering in the senior ranks is a matter of carefully combining work and home so as not to lose themselves, their loved ones, or their foothold on success. Those who do this most effectively involve their families in work decisions and activities. They also vigilantly manage their own human capital, endeavoring to give both work and home their due—over a period of years, not weeks or days. Read more of this post

Choosing the Right Customer

Choosing the Right Customer

by Robert Simons

All companies claim that their strategies are customer driven. But the term “customer” is among the most elastic in management theory. A working definition might be that your customers are the people or entities that buy your products and services and supply your revenue. That includes any number of actors in a company’s value chain: consumers, whole­salers, retailers, purchasing departments, and so forth. Some companies go as far as to label internal units as customers: Manufacturing is a customer of R&D, for instance, and both are customers of HR. Read more of this post

Kering’s Chairman & CEO François-Henri Pinault on Finding the Elusive Formula for Growing Acquired Brands

Kering’s CEO on Finding the Elusive Formula for Growing Acquired Brands

by François-Henri Pinault

The Idea: When Pinault’s team buys a new luxury brand, it drives organic growth by helping the brand with product development, logistics, and retail stores and by pairing creative designers with strong business executives. Read more of this post

Fear of Being Different Stifles Talent

Fear of Being Different Stifles Talent

by Kenji Yoshino and Christie Smith

Diversity is a near-universal value in corporate America, but the upper tiers of management remain stubbornly homogeneous. Consider Fortune 500 CEOs: Only 23 are female, just six are black, and none are openly gay. Why so few gains at the top? We believe that one factor is a phenomenon sociologists call “covering,” whereby people downplay their differences from the mainstream. Someone with a disability might forgo her cane at work, say, while a gay man might avoid using “he” or “him” if asked about his partner. Such behavior is driven not just by self-censorship or internalized biases but also by pressure from managers. It decreases employees’ confidence and engagement and, we think, holds women and minorities back. Read more of this post

Lead from the Heart; Your job as a leader is to tap into the power of that higher purpose-and you can’t do it by retreating to the analytical. If you want to lead, have the courage to do it from the heart

Lead from the Heart

by Gail McGovern

When an executive comes from the private sector to a nonprofit, the usual understanding is that he or she is there to inject some business discipline. When I arrived at the American Red Cross, there were certainly problems to be tackled. The books were closed on FY08 just six days after I started, with a $209 million operating deficit. The organization had been running deficits for some years, borrowing just to provide working capital, and we were more than $600 million in debt. Frankly, we were not very good at fundraising. Yes, we had a terrific brand—the second best-known in the world—but even that needed refreshing. Read more of this post

The circus business: Sunstroke; Cirque du Soleil may be struggling, but the cluster around it is thriving

The circus business: Sunstroke; Cirque du Soleil may be struggling, but the cluster around it is thriving

Feb 15th 2014 | QUEBEC CITY | From the print edition

IN THE deconsecrated church of Saint-Esprit, jugglers toss fluorescent orange clubs in front of the former altar, trapeze artists soar under the gaze of stone saints and wobbly unicyclists use two lines of repurposed pews as handrails. Declared surplus to requirements after Quebeckers deserted Catholicism in droves, the church is now the École de Cirque de Québec, through which 20,000 aspiring entertainers pass each year. The school’s director, Yves Neveu, says only half-jokingly, “Someone said the archbishop should be jealous because I’m filling my church.” Nearby Montreal boasts an even bigger school for circus performers. Read more of this post

The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America’s First Subway

America’s first subways: Boston loves New York; What America learned about building subways

Feb 15th 2014 | From the print edition

The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America’s First Subway. By Doug Most. St Martin’s Press; 404 pages; $27.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

IF THEY were not such rivals, New York and Boston could be twinned. Their strengths make a good fit: New York sees itself as the cultural and financial capital of America; Boston has claims to be its academic and intellectual centre. So the two cities make an impressive team when they channel their aggression, as they did in their earnest yet friendly race to build America’s first subway around the turn of the 20th century. Read more of this post

The time is ripe for a good book about Hillary Clinton’s view of the world

The time is ripe for a good book about Hillary Clinton’s view of the world

Feb 15th 2014 | From the print edition

HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton. By Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. Crown; 440 pages, $26. Hutchinson; £20. Buy from Amazon.com,Amazon.co.uk

AS SECRETARY OF STATE until 2013, Hillary Clinton was chief foreign envoy for a president who came into office burdened with impossible expectations. Barack Obama’s to-do list included slowing global warming, ending the Iraq war, setting Afghanistan on its feet, defanging al-Qaeda, mending ties with Muslims, devoting more military and economic attention to Asia, preventing Iran from building the bomb and—in his own words—restoring America’s image as “the last, best hope on Earth”. He duly fell short. Sometimes, the fault lay elsewhere: with foreign leaders, domestic opponents and events immune even to Mr Obama’s charms. Read more of this post

The science of love at first sight

The science of love at first sight

Feb 12th 2014, 23:50 by N.L. | CHICAGO

BIOLOGISTS believe that love is fundamentally a biological rather than a cultural construct. That is because the capacity for love is found in all human cultures and similar behaviour is found in some other animals, such as prairie voles. In humans the purpose of all the cravings, craziness and desire is to focus attention on the raising of offspring. Children demand an unusual amount of nurturing, and two parents are better than one. Love is a signal that both partners are committed, and makes it more likely that this commitment will continue as long as is necessary for children to reach independence. But what does science have to say about the notion of love at first sight? Read more of this post

Three things your c-suite can learn from family businesses

Three things your c-suite can learn from family businesses 

Dominique Turpin, IMD | Business | Sat, February 15 2014, 2:59 PM

Happy families are all alike, Leo Tolstoy wrote at the start of his novel Anna Karenina.
His observation applies to good family-controlled businesses too. They come in all shapes and sizes—from small enterprises to global companies such as Maersk, Cargill and Samsung—but the best are very similar in some ways. Read more of this post

How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To; Reason #1 You are putting something off because you are afraid you will screw it up

How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To

by Heidi Grant Halvorson  |   12:00 PM February 14, 2014

There’s that project you’ve left on the backburner – the one with the deadline that’s growing uncomfortably near.  And there’s the client whose phone call you really should return – the one that does nothing but complain and eat up your valuable time.  Wait, weren’t you going to try to go to the gym more often this year?

Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them?  Not to mention how much happier and more effective you would be? Read more of this post

Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity

March 2014

Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity

An Interview with Ellen Langer by Alison Beard

Over nearly four decades, Ellen Langer’s research on mindfulness has greatly influenced thinking across a range of fields, from behavioral economics to positive psychology. It reveals that by paying attention to what’s going on around us, instead of operating on auto-pilot, we can reduce stress, unlock creativity, and boost performance. Her “counterclockwise” experiments, for example, demonstrated that elderly men could improve their health by simply acting as if it were 20 years earlier. In this interview with senior editor Alison Beard, Langer applies her thinking to leadership and management in an age of increasing chaos. Read more of this post

John Maynard Keynes, Investment Innovator

Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 27, Number 3—Summer 2013—Pages 213–228cle Citation

Chambers, David, and Elroy Dimson. 2013. “Retrospectives: John Maynard Keynes, Investment Innovator.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(3): 213-28.
John Maynard Keynes made a major contribution to the development of professional investment management. Based on detailed archival research at King’s College, Cambridge, we describe Keynes’ investment philosophy, his investment performance, and the evolution of his investment approach as the manager of a large educational endowment. His portfolios were actively managed and unconventional. He was an investment innovator both in making a substantial allocation to the then new institutional asset class of common stocks as well as in championing value investing.

Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators; “Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.”

Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators

By Megan McArdle

Like most writers, I am an inveterate procrastinator. In the course of writing this one article, I have checked my e-mail approximately 3,000 times, made and discarded multiple grocery lists, conducted a lengthy Twitter battle over whether the gold standard is actually the worst economic policy ever proposed, written Facebook messages to schoolmates I haven’t seen in at least a decade, invented a delicious new recipe for chocolate berry protein smoothies, and googled my own name several times to make sure that I have at least once written something that someone would actually want to read. Read more of this post