A 360° Guru; The challenge is for successful people to work harder to create the right environment for people to express their opinions so that they can learn, and “don’t get lost in the bubble”

A 360° Guru

His current client roster alone is impressive: World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Pfizer CEO Ian Read and chef David Chang of the famed Momofuku group of restaurants, to name a few.

BY LIN YANQIN –

6 HOURS 1 MIN AGO

His current client roster alone is impressive: World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Pfizer CEO Ian Read and chef David Chang of the famed Momofuku group of restaurants, to name a few. What’s perhaps even more so, is how renowned executive coach Marshall Goldsmith marshalls such titans for a super-powered “support group” over dinner, where they discuss their problems and trade advice. Read more of this post

Some wealthy investors are exploring investment policy statements, which are used by foundations to create parameters for how securities are bought and sold

November 22, 2013

Individuals Find Ideas in the Institutional Investment World

By PAUL SULLIVAN

MAYBE the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index crossing 1,800 this week is a sign of a stock market bubble, or maybe the companies that compose it will continue to grow. There are arguments for both, but the correct answer will be clear only at some point in the future. For investors trying to make rational decisions about their portfolio today, this is little comfort. The chatter can be scary. And advice like “stay the course” is about as helpful as telling someone to stop worrying and be happy. Read more of this post

Why Is Turkey Cheaper When Demand Is Higher? It’s a trend that seems to defy Econ 101: In early November, the price of frozen whole turkeys drops. Economists can’t agree on why

November 19, 2013

Why Is Turkey Cheaper When Demand Is Higher?

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

When you do your Thanksgiving shopping this week, you will encounter two vastly different options for the centerpiece: an expensive heritage, organic, antibiotic-free, freshly killed turkey; or a relatively cheap, mass-produced, rock-solid-frozen bird. The frozen birds are a pretty attractive deal — especially because this time of year, they are unusually cheap. According to government data, frozen whole-turkey prices drop significantly every November; over the last decade, retail prices have fallen an average of 9 percent between October and November. Read more of this post

Chess-Championship Results Show Powerful Role of Computers; The digital revolution has pushed human abilities to new heights; Why 22-Year-Old Magnus Carlsen Is the New King of Chess

Chess-Championship Results Show Powerful Role of Computers

The digital revolution has pushed human abilities to new heights

CHRISTOPHER CHABRIS and DAVID GOODMAN

Nov. 22, 2013 11:21 a.m. ET

Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, right, plays India’s Viswanathan Anand Friday in the world chess championship.Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In the world chess championship match that ended Friday in India, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, the cool, charismatic 22-year-old challenger and the highest-rated player in chess history, defeated local hero Viswanathan Anand, the 43-year-old champion. Mr. Carlsen’s winning score of three wins and seven draws will cement his place among the game’s all-time greats. But his success also illustrates a paradoxical development: Chess-playing computers, far from revealing the limits of human ability, have actually pushed it to new heights. Read more of this post

Second-generation conglomerate Doğan started out in the auto industry and now operates in several sectors

PROFILE: TURKEY’S DOĞAN HOLDING

ARTICLE | 20 NOVEMBER, 2013 09:43 AM | BY TESS DE LA MARE

Second-generation conglomerate Doğan Holding started out in the automotive industry and now operates in several sectors. The company is optimistic about growth, but the delicate political situation in Turkey means the future won’t be without its difficulties.

FAMILY
In a little over 50 years, Doğan has become one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates – a country which is not short of big family-controlled companies. The company was founded in 1961 by Aydın Doğan (pictured), who started out in the automotive industry. In 1979 Doğan acquired its first national newspaper, which was followed by the purchase of TV and radio stations. It now has interests in seven sectors – energy, retail, financial services, tourism, media, heavy industry and automobile parts, and operates in 17 different countries. Aydın’s four daughters now head the company. For the past 10 years they have been running a company-supported anti-domestic violence campaign in Turkey. Read more of this post

Is Leadership an Increasingly Difficult Balancing Act? Winning leaders that have little confidence in long-range planning, predictions of others, or their own biases. They will spend less time planning and more time fostering the organizational ability

Is Leadership an Increasingly Difficult Balancing Act?

by James Heskett | Nov 22, 2013

The notion that organizations increasingly will have to pursue transient strategic advantage rather than sustained advantage intensifies the challenge for leaders, says Professor Jim Heskett. What do YOU think? Leadership has always required the management of tensions caused by the simultaneous need for such things as short-term and long-term performance, the exploitation of existing ideas and the search for new ones, and the staffing and motivation of leadership teams with people of diverse backgrounds and capabilities. Read more of this post

Emergence Of The Misfit

A Brief Manifesto For Misfit Entrepreneurs

I came to a journalism startup from a background in engineering and business. Is outsider status really an advantage in the startup world?

By Sunmin Kim

“Are you a real journalist?” asked the editor on the other end of the line. “Is this what you do?” It should have been a routine call in my role with the journalism nonprofit Student Reporter, but this woman had smelled my lack of experience in the industry and balked at our paid syndication proposal. “What’s your background?” she pressed. At that time, I was an Engineering and Business Strategy graduate research assistant at the University of Michigan, doing work in corporate sustainability strategy; my previous life before that being spent mostly in nanotechnology laboratories (“cleanrooms”), researching and developing technologies for biofuel applications. For her, journalism sounded like an “extracurricular” interest of mine. Is that such a bad thing? Today, I work on Student Reporter professionally, and we’re on track to incorporate as a business news outlet for young people, leveraging our global network of experimental newsrooms. I’m here because I am passionate about entrepreneurship and industry transformations–especially those that are disrupted by technology and driven by altruism–and because I want to take an entrepreneurial role in the transformation, something no job I had interviewed for seemed to offer. Read more of this post

Hidden Billionaires Emerge With Retail Fortune in Germany

Hidden Billionaires Emerge With Retail Fortune in Germany

Four members of Germany’s Otto family, which controls Otto GmbH & Co KG, owner of the Crate & Barrel and bonprix retail chains, have surfaced as billionaires, based on a review of German regulatory filings. Benjamin Otto, 38, holds 12.5 percent of the business, which is also known as the Otto Group, making him one of the country’s youngest billionaires. He’s the son of Michael Otto, the 70-year-old chairman of the conglomerate, who controls 78.5 percent of company. The two have a combined fortune of $10.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Read more of this post

Oldest 3,700-Year-Old Wine Cellar Found in Ancient Site in Israel

Oldest Wine Cellar Found in Ancient Site in Israel

A 3,700-year-old wine cellar still holding vestiges of the drink has been unearthed in the Near East, potentially offering modern man a true taste of the past. The excavation in the ancient city of Tel Kabri, in Israel uncovered 40 jars in sizes that could have filled about 3,000 modern wine bottles. The residue suggested they once contained both white and red wine, made with additives that included juniper berries, cinnamon bark, mint and myrtle. Read more of this post

The future of the oceans: Acid test; The world’s seas are becoming more acidic. How much that matters is not yet clear. But it might matter a lot

The future of the oceans: Acid test; The world’s seas are becoming more acidic. How much that matters is not yet clear. But it might matter a lot

Nov 23rd 2013 |From the print edition

HUMANS, being a terrestrial species, are pleased to call their home “Earth”. A more honest name might be “Sea”, as more than seven-tenths of the planet’s surface is covered with salt water. Moreover, this water houses algae, bacteria (known as cyanobacteria) and plants that generate about half the oxygen in the atmosphere. And it also provides seafood—at least 15% of the protein eaten by 60% of the planet’s human population, an industry worth $218 billion a year. Its well-being is therefore of direct concern even to landlubbers. Read more of this post

Singapore PM Lee: Strengthen system that let you succeed

PM Lee: Strengthen system that let you succeed

MESSAGE TO STUDENTS: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the principal of CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School, Mrs Tan Wai Lan, at the 80th anniversary of the school on Monday. The Chinese characters “yin shui si yuan” on the easel is a Chinese saying meaning “know where you come from”.

Friday, November 22, 2013 – 07:30

The New Paper

Schools, especially those with students who have done well, should imbue them with the spirit of service, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday. Mr Lee was speaking at an event marking the 80th anniversary of the CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School. He said that while the students may have succeeded through talent and hard work, they also had to realise that this is possible because they live in a society with a meritocratic system that rewards them for their abilities and develops them to their potential, one that cheers those who succeed instead of cutting them down. Read more of this post

Hierarchy Is Overrated

Hierarchy Is Overrated

by Tim Kastelle  |   2:00 PM November 20, 2013

Maybe you’ve heard the old cliché – if you’ve got “too many chiefs,” your initiative will fail. Every time I hear it, I wonder, “Why can’t everyone be a chief?” For instance, the Second Chance Programme is a group that raises money to help reduce homelessness among women here in Southeast Queensland.  It’s achieved impressive results since being founded in 2001, and is run by a committee of about ten people. In the early days, a management consultant used the familiar chiefs/Indians line to predict they’d fail. This kind of thinking assumes: You need a hierarchy to succeed. The people that do the work are of lower status than those that decide what work to do. Organizations that don’t follow the norms are likely to fail. I think that all of these ideas are wrong.  Second Chance has certainly been very successful with their flat, non-hierarchical structure.  They have achieved a great deal, while keeping their overhead close to $0.  If the structure of the management committee was a problem, they would have failed by now. But maybe this kind of structure only works for not-for-profits? Nope.  About 20% of the world’s websites are now on the WordPress platform – making it one of the most important internet companies.  And yet, Automattic, the firm behind WordPress, only employs a couple hundred people, who all work remotely, with a highly autonomous flat management structure.  GitHub is another highly successful firm with a similar structure. Read more of this post

Old hands steered by the young: The CEO of Tesco is among the veterans using reverse mentors to bridge a generation gap

November 20, 2013 4:24 pm

Old hands steered by the young

By Emma Jacobs

Every month, Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke meets 28-year-old Paul Wilkinson for a mentoring session. In this time Mr Wilkinson, who works in the British supermarket’s technology research and development division, teaches his boss everything he knows. For this is not the traditional professional development practice in which a young, junior employee is given career advice by a senior manager. Instead, the roles are reversed. Read more of this post

Morpher’s Flat-Folding Bike Helmet

Morpher’s Flat-Folding Bike Helmet

By Karen Epper Hoffman November 21, 2013

Innovator: Jeff Woolf, OBE
Age: 54
Title: Managing director of London-based Morpher Helmet

Form and function: A half-pound helmet that can fold up into a block measuring 6.5 inches by 12.9 inches by 1.9 inches, compact enough to fit into a bag or briefcase.

Here’s The 5-Sentence Personal Essay That Helped JFK Get Into Harvard

Here’s The 5-Sentence Personal Essay That Helped JFK Get Into Harvard

PETER JACOBS NOV. 20, 2013, 1:19 PM 49,634 53

Without a doubt, John F. Kennedy is one of Harvard University’s most accomplished and impressive graduates. However, the former POTUS was not the best applicant when he decided he wanted to take up residence in Cambridge, Mass. He had poor grades from high school, and while he had spent two months at Princeton University before leaving due to an illness, even his own father called him “careless.” In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, The Washington Post has highlighted many of his school records, including a handwritten Harvard application. You can check out the digitized originals at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. As part of the Harvard application — which at the time was a mere three pages — students were asked to give a “careful answer” to the question “Why do you wish to come to Harvard?” Here’s what a young JFK had to say:

The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a “Harvard man” is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain.

April 23, 1935
John F. Kennedy

From the JFK library, here’s the original:

German “luxury bishop” settles with court over 1st class flight-to-poverty case

German “luxury bishop” settles with court over 1st class flight-to-poverty case

Mon, Nov 18 2013

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German court has dropped for the time being an investigation into a Roman Catholic prelate known as the “luxury bishop” over accusations he lied under oath about taking a first-class flight to visit poverty projects in India. State prosecutors had sought to have Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg fined for making false affidavits about the flight, but the court accepted a 20,000-euro settlement. Read more of this post

From physician to Web entrepreneur of online medical portal DocDoc

From physician to Web entrepreneur

SINGAPORE — As someone used to plying 20-hour shifts in a highly stressful hospital environment, Dr Dawn Soo was no stranger to hard work. But it was not until she made the transition from physician to entrepreneur that she truly understood the concept.

BY FRANCIS KAN –

4 HOURS 33 MIN AGO

SINGAPORE — As someone used to plying 20-hour shifts in a highly stressful hospital environment, Dr Dawn Soo was no stranger to hard work. But it was not until she made the transition from physician to entrepreneur that she truly understood the concept. “Your brain never (really) stops working. Starting a company from scratch is like having a baby — you don’t have time for anything else,” said the 30-year-old, one of five co-founders of DocDoc, an online medical portal. Read more of this post

Cineworld founder started off by testing auditorium seats

November 20, 2013 6:14 pm

Cineworld founder started off by testing auditorium seats

By Robert Cookson

Steve Wiener, the New York-born cinephile who built the UK’s biggest cinema chain, started his career as an usher. Mr Wiener was studying at the University of Miami in 1970 when he took a part-time job at a cinema in Coral Gables, Florida. One of his first duties was to sit and rock in every chair in a 900-seat auditorium to check that they had been installed correctly. After graduating, he quickly worked his way up through the ranks of the US cinema industry. In 1991 he moved to the UK to become managing director of Warner Bros Europe – his first trip outside the US. Read more of this post

Alli Webb, a former hairstylist, built Drybar, a 32-store chain of salons that offer $40 blowouts. She says repeat clients are one of the keys to sustaining the business, as women pursue an affordable luxury

Hair Chain Drybar Finds Niche in Affordable Luxury

Co-Founder Says Repeat Clients Provide the Lift to Sustain Business on $40 Blowouts

CAITLIN HUSTON

Nov. 20, 2013 8:37 p.m. ET

Drybar entrepreneur Alli Webb: ‘We’ve changed behavior, which is really amazing and humbling…. We are kind of like the fabric of people’s lives.’ Annie Tritt for The Wall Street Journal

Alli Webb started a door-to-door hairstyling business in 2008 as a way to get out of her house and take a break from rearing her two kids. The former hairstylist saw the need for a service that focused on providing affordable, high-quality blowouts—in which a client’s hair is washed and blow-dried into a style, without being colored or cut. The business spread through word-of-mouth, and Ms. Webb soon found herself unable to keep up with demand. Her side project turned into a company with a projected $40 million in revenue this year. Read more of this post

Sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire seen to get most of revenue from overseas

Updated: Thursday November 21, 2013 MYT 9:42:23 AM

Sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire seen to get most of revenue from overseas

LOS ANGELES  When the sequel “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” debuts worldwide on Friday, industry analysts believe the movie from studio Lions Gate Entertainment  will set international box offices ablaze in a bigger way than the first film. The original “Hunger Games” movie in 2012 became a smash hit with strong sales in the United Statesand Canada, but pulled in less than half of its box office grosses in overseas markets, a modest foreign take by blockbuster standards. Today’s biggest Hollywood movies often earn 50 to 70 percent of their revenue overseas. Read more of this post

Singapore-sized iceberg threatens global shipping

Singapore-sized iceberg threatens global shipping

LONDON — An iceberg estimated to be about the size of Singapore has broken off from Antarctica and could threaten shipping, NASA’s Earth Observatory announced on Nov 15.

BY –

14 MIN 19 SEC AGO

LONDON — An iceberg estimated to be about the size of Singapore has broken off from Antarctica and could threaten shipping, NASA’s Earth Observatory announced on Nov 15. The news sparked off tracking efforts by UK researchers, who were given a £50,000 (S$101,000) emergency grant to fund a six-month project predicting the movements of the 700 square km giant block of ice and possible environmental impacts. The team will track the progress of the iceberg through satellite data, reported The Daily Telegraph. Read more of this post

The author of The Lean Startup is thinking big about the challenges facing companies in an economy driven by innovation

November 12, 2013 / Winter 2013 / Issue 73

Why Eric Ries Likes Management

The author of The Lean Startup is thinking big about the challenges facing companies in an economy driven by innovation.

by Paul Michelman

Most of us think of entrepreneurship as the antithesis of traditional management, especially when it comes to the stars of the digital economy, like, say, Eric Ries. But Ries, who is known for extolling the virtues of rapid-fire innovation—he coined the term minimum viable product to describe his methodology for getting new products (sometimes barely functioning prototypes) into the hands of customers as early as possible—views things in a different light. Entrepreneurship is not an opposing force to “serious” management, he says, but its own distinct, and complementary, variety of it. Read more of this post

What Inexperienced Leaders Get Wrong (Hint: Management)

What Inexperienced Leaders Get Wrong (Hint: Management)

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter  |   8:00 AM November 21, 2013

There are an awful lot of leaders in trouble these days. Not just those under attack for ethical lapses, accounting problems, or excessive compensation – retired college presidents are the latest to join corporate executives in the latter category. The trouble I’m referring to is getting new ideas implemented and brought to scale. The leaders range from entrepreneurs with great ideas but a flaw preventing expansion (Tesla?) to new CEOs with a vision their stakeholders won’t rally behind that won’t guarantee results anyway. Read more of this post

Nikola Tesla: “I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything”

11 Bizarre Sleeping Habits Of Highly Successful People

VIVIAN GIANG NOV. 19, 2013, 11:24 AM 219,099 6

One of a professional’s most important daily rituals is how and when they sleep, since this affects how well they perform on the job. For people at the top, who often face intense pressure and packed schedules, sometimes these sleeping habits can be quite strange. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, for instance, sleeps in a high altitude chamber which forces his body to work even while resting. Meanwhile, famed writer Charles Dickens always slept facing north, and inventor Nikola Tesla never slept for more than two hours a night. Here’s a look at the most bizarre sleeping habits of highly successful people.

Inventor Nikola Tesla never slept for more than two hours a day.Tesla got more out of the day with his limited sleep schedule. Like Da Vinci, Telsa also followed the Uberman sleep cycle and claimed to never sleep for more than two hours a day and reportedly once worked for 84 hours in a lab without any rest or sleep. “I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success … Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything,” he said. Read more of this post

Malcolm Walker, Iceland’s frozen food evangelist; “A lot of my friends who’ve had businesses have sold them and suddenly got old very quickly.” “Some of my friends have done well in business . . . their 17-year-old gets a BMW, they all turn out brats. My three children are amazing. They know the value of money.”

November 10, 2013 1:40 pm

Malcolm Walker, Iceland’s frozen food evangelist

By Emma Jacobs

There is a great deal of snobbery surrounding Iceland, the frozen food emporium started by Malcolm Walker more than four decades ago. People like to mock its doner kebab pizzas and its party packets of “bubble bobble” prawns. He has heard it all before. There has always been, he observes, a distinct class difference between the City of London and its metropolitan media, and northern entrepreneurs, like him. Read more of this post

Disruption and loss can foster growth; Adversity often provides the stimulus that drives a determination to success in business

November 19, 2013 4:10 pm

Disruption and loss can foster new growth

By Luke Johnson

Adversity often provides the stimulus that drives a determination to success in business

E xperiencing adversity is almost a necessary precondition for those destined for the top. As Henry David Thoreau said: “You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.” If it all comes too easy, if your life is too comfortable, then you are unlikely to stretch yourself, or know how to handle hard knocks. Nothing creates adversity like war. It is almost always a tragic waste of lives and resources. But from all the terrible dislocation of armed conflict a number of businesses have emerged. Read more of this post

Hemingway’s Secret to Maintaining Productive Momentum: Always Leave a Little Water in the Well

HEMINGWAY’S SECRET TO MAINTAINING PRODUCTIVE MOMENTUM

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING LIKE ERNEST? TREAT YOUR PRODUCTIVITY AS IF IT’S A RENEWABLE RESOURCE: ALWAYS LEAVE A LITTLE WATER IN THE WELL.

BY DRAKE BAER

To Ernest Hemingway, writers are like wells: “The important thing is to have good water in the well,” he told the Paris Review, “and it is better to take a regular amount out than to pump the well dry and wait for it to refill.” In this way, Hemingway coined the phrase leaving water in the well: instead of spending all your creative juices all at once, you leave a little bit of inspiration so that you can return to the same momentum that you left it with. Hemingway, whose habits of badass productivity we’ve talked about before, said to never stop writing without knowing how you are going to start again, to, in other words, never end a day’s work without knowing how you are going to start the next day. Read more of this post

U.S. marks 150th anniversary of Gettysburg Address

U.S. marks 150th anniversary of Gettysburg Address

AFP-JIJI

NOV 20, 2013

Oration for the ages: An actor portraying Abraham Lincoln poses for photos Tuesday in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after a ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary of the 16th president’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address. | AP

GETTYSBURG PENNSYLVANIA – The Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln’s undying call for a “new birth of freedom” at the bloody turning point of the U.S. Civil War, turned 150 years old Tuesday, even as the union he fought to preserve quarrels bitterly over the role of government. Thousands of people bundled up against the autumn chill — some in Civil War-era uniform — crowded into the Soldiers’ National Cemetery where Lincoln delivered the 272 words that became one of the most revered speeches in U.S. history. Read more of this post