Recessions

“They gave us a whole can of soda” was how my octogenarian mother-in-law explained a recent experience when her plane was kept on the ground an extra hour for de-icing. Monica was not complaining; she was framing the delay as a positive. This veteran traveler knows that delays are inevitable. My mother-in-law’s attitude might serve […]

There are many reasons for not working with jerks, as Bob Sutton has pointed out in his memorably-titled book The No Asshole Rule. But I think I’ve discovered another reason for not having them in your organization’s employ: they often make bad decisions. While all jerks don’t always make bad decisions, and non-jerks occasionally decide […]

Strategies to help your company buck the troubling trend.

We all know we're navigating uncharted economic waters. But here are a few pieces of data that bring this unprecedented environment into sharp relief-both...

An entire generation’s prosperity vanishing, food stamp use exploding. Welcome to the jobless future. This month’s jobs numbers drive home the point. The unemployment rate fell at the fastest rate for years — great news, right? Wrong. The lion’s share of the gains came from (wait for it) “temporary help services.” See what just happened? […]

It’s become the mantra of the moment: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Leaders everywhere are struggling to make sense of the worldwide economic crisis, to learn lessons that will guide them and their companies going forward. My worry is that too many leaders are learning the wrong lessons — they are becoming […]

Finance has always been dominated by men and driven by a testosterone-enhanced culture. If women had been running our banks, might we have avoided the sub-prime mess and the resulting economic meltdown? Halla Tomasdottir, a prominent Icelandic financier, answers yes. In a recent BBC interview she shared her outrage at the wild risks male bankers […]

Given the recent economic news, I will go out on a limb and state that we are officially headed back into recession, or what can now officially be called a double-dip recession. Business optimism is at a record low, commodities prices have jumped to inflationary levels, home sales recently dropped to prices not seen since […]

Win, my mountain biking partner, and I looked down the ten-foot drop. “Should be fun,” he said as we backed away from the edge and climbed up the hill to get some runway. I wasn’t so sure. He climbed on his bike, pedaled to get a little speed, and took the plunge, effortlessly gliding over […]

When today’s great crisis ends, the U.S. financial system will be a shadow of its former self, but America will be stronger than ever. History shows that money and power don’t always go hand in hand.

The 2008 recession is an economic firestorm unlike anything the country has seen since the Great Depression. But 2009 is shaping up to be a trigger for an unprecedented surge of innovation that may be one of the most important turning points in the last 100 years. While things are undoubtedly more difficult these days, […]

For too long, boardrooms have practiced strategy as theater. But those days are over. To explain, consider the sad case of Pontiac. Poor Pontiac, says the New York Times, died of “indifference.” They’re right, but the real question is: why? GM’s managers decided that Pontiacs could be merely marketed as exciting and a tiny bit […]

The right process can help you boost revenue, expand margins, and successfully launch new products - even in challenging economic times.

There’s an old story about two shoe salesmen whose company sends them to a remote village in Africa. Upon arrival, one sends home a message saying, “No one here wears shoes; will return shortly.” The other salesman sends this message: “No one here wears shoes; send inventory!” The point of the story, of course, is […]

A downturn opens up rare opportunities to outmaneuver rivals. But first you need to put your own house in order.

Mention “Google,” and innovation watchers immediately think of the company’s seemingly paradigm-busting approach to innovation, where engineers spend up to 20 percent of their time working on passion projects, teams self-form around ideas, and internal market mechanisms prioritize, shape, and scale ideas. Add in Google’s legendary perks, and it is no surprise that the company […]

There is clearly some evidence that the current financial crisis was created-at least in part-by poor use of analytical approaches and techniques. If...

Risk management is almost an oxymoron – like Jumbo Shrimp. Firms that are great at risk management are fastidious about statistically significant effects, but at the same time can make brilliant leaps of insight on small amounts of data. They can create the most comprehensive models with genius analytics, and spend just as much time […]

The Idea in Brief It’s good that a recession forces businesses to operate more efficiently, but many panic and make damaging trade-offs. Alice Waters runs a thriftier kitchen these days at Chez Panisse, but she still gives top priority to quality and sustainability, both indispensable to the brand. In contrast to the many business owners […]

Okay, it’s fun to tweak Twitter and the Twitterati, as I did in my last post, and it’s great that such remarks bring out so many commenters. This week, however, I’m writing about a topic that is much more important to us all — even if you think Twitter is the greatest thing since CB […]