Week of May 15, 2017
Happy Mother’s Day!
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
Abraham Lincoln
“God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.”
Rudyard Kipling
“Love the One You’re With”
Remember the Crosby, Stills and Nash hit song “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with?” One CEO thinks you should look at your current job that way, especially if you’re not happy doing it. Ben Chestnut who runs email marketing services MailChimp reflects on his own career path and choices he made along the way that weren’t always what he wanted at the time, but ultimately redounded to his benefit and advises us to “Learn to Love the Job You’ve Got.”
“Defy the Gap!”
Professional sports team employ full time talent scouts. Do you? You may not need to go as far as the sports team do in this regard, but with the economy at near full employment, all the low hanging fruit has moved further up the tree. Wouldn’t you be well served to reassess your company’s talent scouting game? This short article and accompanying link for downloading a helpful book from Max Barnett’s Impact Group may help you get started. Do you have time to “Defy the Talent Gap”?
How to Plan a Coup
The tense situation being created by North Korea has the full attention of the US, China, Japan, South Korea and just about everyone else. It’s a very complex situation that requires all the players to move carefully lest disaster ensue. Many believe that regime change is the only viable avenue.
Vistage Speaker and former CIA Special Assistant to the Director Herb Meyer looks at this possibility, bringing his usual insightful analysis and first hand foreign affairs experience to the problem. Whether you agree with any political opinions expressed, this article should be studied as a first rate demonstration of how to think through a complex situation fraught with risk. Herb has shared this process in presentations to hundreds of Vistage Groups and in keynotes to major organizations around the world.
To that end, I urge you to study his article, How to Defuse the Crisis with North Korea, to sharpen your own analytical sword in similar situations in your business life.
That Sucking Sound
More on the remarkable shift in the fortunes of brick and mortar retailers in this four minute CNBC video interview with a leading retail investor.
Econ Recon: Pendulums and Pricing
Pendulums: Economist Brian Wesbury looks at the US and Europe and sees a reversal of some long term negative trends leading him to forecast a stock marketing that is still significantly undervalued. Find out by how much in his most recent Wesbury 101 video The Pendulum Swings.
Pricing: In both down markets and competitive situations, we often focus on volume and forget about pricing. ITR Economics President Alan Beaulieu has some thoughts on this in his most recent ITR blog entry.