Here’s the good news: recessions are the furnaces of creativity. They produce new innovators and entrepreneurs at an extraordinary rate. In fact, a recent survey of CEOs found that almost two-thirds had been fired or laid off before founding their company.
But there’s also a dark side to this creativity. Most new companies fail. Why? There [...]
Mexican pottery has long been prized in the United States. Its unique colors and designs make it attractive on the dinner table or on display. In recent years, however, it’s also been stigmatized as potentially life threatening. You see, Mexican pottery is traditionally made with a lead based glaze. Its brightly hued Aztec figures can [...]
Although it’s happened in other recessions, this time, it’s far more pronounced. The companies that are laying people off are also hiring. Slowly to be sure, but they are hiring.
And that creates a dilemma. As I describe in my book, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System, one of the key strategies [...]
Listen to most evening news reports or the opinions of many of the pundits on cable, and you’d think we Americans are on the doorstep of a second Great Depression.
Turns out, much of this commentary is more fear mongering than fact.
According to Bradley R. Schiller, author of The Economy Today, these are the facts:
Stock values [...]
As you may know, one of the things my company does is publish print guides to job boards. By our count, there are at least 50,000 of these sites now operating in the U.S. That, however, was before the economy went south.
I guess it was inevitable, but with millions of Americans now looking for work, [...]
Stumped used to be a slightly negative term. It meant that you were held back or held up, usually by forces beyond your control. In short, when you were stumped, you were stopped.
That was particularly true in the world of work. If you were stumped by a prejudiced boss or an inflexible HR system, your [...]
Recently, there’s been some angry commentary online about the small but growing number of job boards that charge visitors for access to some or all of their services. Many, but certainly not all of the posts talk about these sites as if they were the second coming of Bernie Madoff. In the view of the [...]
Most CEOs have never been in the military. Their idea of courage is facing the (so-called) stress of doing a deal or meeting Wall Street’s expectations. So, here’s a lesson in leadership that even the most junior second lieutenant knows and practices every day: you eat last. That’s right, whether it’s in the mess hall [...]
Most American working men and women would be horrified to think that the outcome of their careers—their success or lack of it in the workplace—is the product of a genetic predisposition over which they have little or no control. After all, this is the U.S. of A., a place founded on and dedicated to [...]
