Diversity Training Doesn’t Work

By Peter Bregman   Article

“A study of 829 companies over 31 years showed that diversity training had “no positive effects in the average workplace.” Millions of dollars a year were spent on the training resulting in, well, nothing. Attitudes — and the diversity of the organizations — remained the same.

It gets worse. The researchers — Frank Dobbin of Harvard, Alexandra Kalev of Berkeley, and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota — concluded that “In firms where training is mandatory or emphasizes the threat of lawsuits, training actually has negative effects on management diversity.” … When people divide into categories to illustrate the idea of diversity, it reinforces the idea of the categories.

Which, if you think about it, is the essential problem of prejudice in the first place. People aren’t prejudiced against real people; they’re prejudiced against categories. “Sure, John is gay,” they’ll say, “but he’s not like other gays.” Their problem isn’t with John, but with gay people in general.

Categories are dehumanizing. They simplify the complexity of a human being. So focusing people on the categories increases their prejudice. The solution? Instead of seeing people as categories, we need to see people as people.  … Not categories of people. People. Teach them how to have difficult conversations with a range of individuals. …

And, while teaching them that, help them resist the urge to think about someone as a gay person, a white man, a black woman, or an Indian. Also help them to resist the urge to think about someone as “just like me” — that’s a mistake too. Move beyond similarity and diversity to individuality. Help them see John, not as a gay white man, but as John. Yes, John may be gay and white and a man. But he’s so much more than that.

Don’t reinforce his labels, which only serve to stereotype him. Reveal his singularity. Don’t ask: What are the dreams of a gay white man. Ask: What are John’s dreams? What does he hate? What are his passions? The antidote to the ineffectiveness of diversity training is the opposite of diversity training. If you want diversity, think about an individual, then another, then another.”

What your job is Not

By Sarah   Article

• “Your job is not checking email.
• Your job is not (just) making other people happy. 
• Your job is not to stay late.
• Your job is not to be miserable.
• Your job is not to make other people miserable.
• Your job is not procrastinating. 
• Your job is not acting in a way that goes against your beliefs.
• Your job is not to be bored.
• Your job is not your life.

What is your job?

• Your job is something you do.
• Your job might help you to pay the bills.
• Your job is a place to create great work. 
• Your job is to learn.
• Your job is to bring your unique and necessary skillset to particular projects.
• Your job is to excel.
• Your job is to innovate, improve, and generate.
• Your job is to to make your boss look great.
• Your job is to use your judgment wisely.
• Your job is to be the best professional you can be, given your knowledge, expertise and judgment.
• Your job is to be a great teammate. 
• Your job is to make others’ work better. 
• Your job is to grow.”

12 Customer Dos & Don’ts

By Geoffrey James   Article

“DO put connection before content.  Clients don’t want you to sell to them; they want you to genuinely care about them. Take the time to build a personal connection before you start talking business.

DON’T badmouth the competition.  Only people who are insecure try to build themselves up at the expense of others. Show your competitors the same respect you’d want if the positions were reversed.

DO focus on individuals, not companies.  You may be selling to an organization, but you’re doing it through an individual.  Remember: ABC Inc. is not going to buy your offering; but Joe might.

DON’T give a sales pitch.  Pitches are a great way to shut people down and pigeonhole you as a hustler.  Even when speaking to a group, make the interchange a conversation, not a lecture. …

DO engage with customers as equals.  The client conversation should contain a feeling of mutuality rather than talking down to or being subservient to your clients.

DON’T attempt an “end run.”  Bypassing a client or customer contact who is ambivalent or hostile will create an enemy for life. That person will constantly work against you … from the inside. You don’t want that.

DO keep the conversation mutual.  Your goal is to earn your client’s trust by connecting with them, thereby creating a sense of safety.  You can’t do that if you’re yakking away.

DON’T pull your punches.  Never be afraid to tell clients what they need to know if you feel they might be making a mistake–especially if that mistake involves buying your product.

DO be willing to play “little league.”  Even if you know there’s a huge (i.e. big league) opportunity, shove your own agenda aside and focus on whatever game this client wants to play right now.

DON’T play negotiation games. That stuff you read in the “How to Negotiate” books?  Forget it. You’re trying to forge a relationship, not win a zero-sum competition.

DO self-disclose when appropriate.  Human beings buy from human beings.  Rather than talking purely business, it’s OK to occasionally bring up family, hobbies, or whatever will be of real interest to you and your clients.

DON’T mistake apathy for loyalty.  The surest sign that a client is about to switch to another vendor is a lack of enthusiasm for you and your offering.”

Capitalism, Version 2012

By Thomas Freidman   Article

“David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor-at-large of Foreign Policy magazine, has a smart new book out, entitled “Power, Inc.,” about the epic rivalry between big business and government that captures, in many ways, what the 2012 election should be about — and it’s not “contraception,” although the word does begin with a “C.” It’s the future of “capitalism” and whether it will be shaped in America or somewhere else.

Rothkopf argues that while for much of the 20th century the great struggle on the world stage was between capitalism and communism, which capitalism won, the great struggle in the 21st century will be about whichversion of capitalism will win, which one will prove the most effective at generating growth and become the most emulated.

“Will it be Beijing’s capitalism with Chinese characteristics?” asks Rothkopf. “Will it be the democratic development capitalism of India and Brazil? Will it be entrepreneurial small-state capitalism of Singapore and Israel? Will it be European safety-net capitalism? Or will it be American capitalism?” It is an intriguing question, which raises another: What is American capitalism today, and what will enable it to thrive in the 21st century?”

Thriving Through Processes

By Dan Rockwell   Article

“Organizations without processes never thrive. 

Effective and efficient processes create platforms that enable, enhance, and evaluate both individual and organizational performance. What’s your systematic process for achieving breakthroughs, living transparently, or solving problems?

Powerful processes:

1. Eliminate drama.
2. Prevent distractions.
3. Focus talent.
4. Instill confidence.
5. Expedite efficiencies.
6. Establish measures.

Seven Steps to Solve Problems:

1. Agree on the problem. Define the challenge and ask why a solution matters. Additionally, explain why the problem requires a quick solution, how to measure success, and a proposed deadline. Your problem statement and its parts must be concise, clear, and blame-free. It must not offer solutions.
2. Map the process. Understand how the work currently gets done and where it breaks down. Create a process map including all decision points.
3. Find the root cause. Complete a root cause analysis by first gathering data that explains how and why the process breaks down.
4. Develop solutions. Create several solutions and choose the best one. Assess its impact on surrounding processes. Complete an implementation workplan.
5. Implement the fix. Monitor success and adjust as you go.
6. Hold the gain. Install controls that prevent the root cause from reoccurring. Address reoccurrences quickly and decisively.
7. Reflect and Learn. Discuss and document knowledge gained and lessons learned.”

Government innovation

Source

The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

By Jeff Haden   Article

“1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse. Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more capable so they—and your business—can achieve more. …

2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don’t get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments… all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm. And they’re distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. …

3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link. While that employee may desperately want to “rehabilitate” himself, it’s almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval is too heavy for one person to move. But it’s not too heavy for you. …

4. Serve others, not yourself. … Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did. … When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you. …

5. Always remember where you came from. … To some of your employees, especially new employees, you are … in charge. You’re the boss. That’s why an employee who wants to talk about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments with you. When that happens, you have a choice. You can blow the employee off… or you cansee the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for greater things in their life.”

Viewing Stock Market Changes With Perspective

By Barry Ritholtz   Source

The Four Engineers

Source

“One day, a Mechanical Engineer, Electrical Engineer, Chemical Engineer and Computer Engineer were driving down the street in the same car.

The car broke down.

The Mechanical Engineer said, “I think a rod broke.”

The Chemical Engineer said, “The way it sputtered at the end, I don’t think it’s getting gas.”

The Electrical Engineer said, “I think there was a spark and something is wrong with the electrical system.”

All three turned to the computer engineer and said, “What do you think?”

The Computer Engineer said, “I think we should all get out and get back in.”"

10 Things I’ve Learned

By Cindy Alvarez    Article

1. “Whatever people say they will pay for it is wrong.
2. If someone says, “I wouldn’t personally use it, but I bet other people would”, no one will use it.
3. The answer to any question that starts with “do you want” or “are you concerned about” will always be “yes” .
4. If someone says “maybe it’s just me, but…” — it’s not. Especially if it pertains to your product being hard to use or your marketing being unclear.
5. If you want to charge money for your product, don’t talk to people who try to get everything for free. (They might eventually be customers, but not until your product goes more mainstream or becomes a defacto standard.)
6. What features your customers ask for is never as interesting as why they want them.
7. Almost anyone will do almost anything for you as long as: the request is short, you are enthusiastic, they don’t have to make any decisions that require more than 1 minute of thought.
8. The two driving forces of purchase and usage behavior are apathy and the desire to avoid looking/feeling stupid.
9. You can’t build a good product if you don’t genuinely like the people who’ll be using it.  You don’t have to be like them, but you have to like them.
10. Whenever you start thinking “this is a lot more complicated than I originally thought”, you should immediately stop and find a sounding board. You are probably either wrong or overthinking things, and an external brain will see it much faster than you.”

11 Habits of Highly Ineffective Managers

By Goeffrey James   Article

“2. Managing Numbers, Not People

Weak bosses spend more time with their spreadsheets than with their employees. While they give lip service to employee morale, they’re all about the bottom line–even if it means making everybody miserable.

Strong bosses see the numbers not as a reason for for managing employees but as a measure of how well those employees are managed. These bosses consider coaching to be top priority and trust that investing in people will cause the numbers to improve. …

5. Believing the Technology Myth

Weak bosses swallow the malarkey (endlessly promoted in high-tech ads) that computer technology automatically makes employees more productive. They’re thus ready to shell out big bucks … even when the last three IT projects died on the vine.

Strong bosses are well aware that new technology can eat up resources without providing much benefit. They are skeptical about which technologies to embrace, and they encourage their employees to be selective when deciding what to use. …

8. Expecting Employees to Read Your Mind

Weak bosses believe employees will stay on their toes if they never know exactly what the boss is thinking. When such bosses provide feedback, its something like: “Nope, that’s not it!” or “Back to the drawing board!”

Strong bosses are explicit and specific about what they want and what needs to happen. They explain exactly how every project will be measured, and intervene only when those measurements show the project is going awry.”

Preparing for an Entirely New Economy

By Jamie Notter   Article

“Stiglitz pointed out that the depression was a result of a huge shift in our economy, from agriculture to manufacturing. We HAD to have that depression to deal with the fact that our large portion of our workforce was focused on doing something (farming) that wasn’t going to make money and be sustainable like it used to be. We needed to shift into a phase where farming was much smaller and manufacturing was much bigger. You don’t do that by retraining people over a two year period. You need a structural adjustment. Stiglitz argues that the banks failing, etc. was a RESULT of this shift, not a CAUSE of the depression.

So today we might be in a similar boat. This is the time where we finally have to shift AWAY from the manufacturing economy. Stiglitz says it will be towards a service economy, but Denning suggests it will actually be a “creative” economy.

The Creative Economy is one in which both manufacturing and services play a role. It is an economy in which the driving force is innovation. It is an economy in which organizations are nimble and agile and continually offering new value to customers and delivering it sooner. The Creative Economy is an economy in which firms focus not on short-term financial returns but rather on creating long-term customer value based on trust.

Innovation, nimble, continually offering new value, trust…sound familiar? This is what we talk about in Humanize. We hadn’t thought about it in terms of preparing companies for an entirely new economy, but hey, if that what it takes, we’re game! Denning talks about that:

Most large firms of today are ill-equipped to compete in the emerging Creative Economy, in which globalization and the shift in power in the marketplace from seller to buyer have put the customer in charge.   Most big firms still have a factory mindset oriented to economies of scale. They are focused principally on maximizing short-term shareholder value. They are not organized for continuous innovation. This way of managing is unable to mobilize the full creative talents of their employees.”

The Soft Stuff Is the Hard Stuff

By Douglas R. Conant  Article

“If you’re a 3rd Alternative supervisor, you’ll neither flee nor fight. You’ll look for something better [when conflict arises], a solution that will provide your employee with a huge emotional payoff and create for the firm new and significant value. …

Consider how this woman led her team to a 3rd Alternative:

• First, she took time to listen empathetically. She wanted to understand her young employee’s issue and his feelings about it. On the face of it, she wanted to know why his salary bothered him. But more deeply, she wanted to grasp what he was all about and what he could bring to the company that would pay off for everyone, not just for him.
• Then she sought him out. She brought him back again and again, explored his thinking and involved other thinkers. She valued his distinctive gifts and insights.
• Finally, the group arrived at synergy: new services, new products, new ways of meeting the needs of an important client, and beyond that the needs of a new segment of clients.

… Most thinkers about conflict resolution treat a conflict as a transaction. It’s about dividing up the pie. You can either accommodate or confront your opponent. You can give away the pie or you can fight over it, and there are techniques and tricks to gain an advantage. But divide it as you will — in the end, it’s the same pie.

By contrast, the 3rd Alternative is to transform the situation. It’s about making a new pie that’s bigger and better — perhaps exponentially bigger and better. Where most conflict resolution is transactional, the 3rd Alternative is transformational.”

How The Kindle Stomped Sony, Or, Why Good Solutions Beat Great Products

By Ron Adner   Article

“Launched in 2006, Sony’s Reader was a Lamborghini to the Model Ts of earlier attempts at electronic book readers. Slim and lightweight, with a highly praised “electronic ink” technology that was as easy on the eyes as was paper, it was touted as the iPod of the book industry. It achieved what no other reader had managed: a reading experience that approximated traditional print, with all the advantages (storage, search, and portability) inherent to digital media. The launch met with much fanfare from the press, where the Reader was hailed as “the electronic gadget that could change the way we read.” …

As the publishing industry haggled over how to make e-books a winning proposition, Amazon entered the fray in 2007. Described by one analyst as “downright industrially ugly,” it was larger than the Reader, weighed more, and had an inferior screen. Moreover, it was a very closed platform that was able to load content only from Amazon, and which precluded users from transferring the books they purchased to or from any other device, sharing with friends, or even connecting to a printer.

How could Amazon engineer a triumph with a weaker product? The company did it by engineering a superior solution. Presenting the Kindle, CEO Jeff Bezos announced, “This isn’t a device, it’s a service.” Unlike Sony’s Reader, the Kindle offered a complete experience for the customer: an expansive library of books and the ability to download the book instantly using Amazon’s wireless network….

Amazon’s and Sony’s efforts to conquer e-books were the inverse of one another: Sony enjoyed competence in its hardware but was a stranger to the ecosystem; Amazon was well positioned in the ecosystem but was less competent with its hardware. The e-book ecosystem–like so many of today’s innovative efforts–is ultimately a system of interdependencies. Success is not determined on the basis of a winning effort at any single point; it requires moving the entire cohort of partners in the same direction.”

Organizations Where Average Leaders Excel

By Dan Rockwell   Article

“By definition most of us are average. Even though:

• 68% of the faculty at the University of Nebraska rate themselves in the top 25% of teaching ability.
• 90% students see themselves as more intelligent than the average student.
• 93% of U.S. drivers put themselves in the top 50% of driving ability.
• 92% of teachers say they are less biased than average. That one is uniquely hilarious.
• 96% of leaders today believe they have above average people skills. Stanford University School of Business.

On average, most of us think we are above average. Leaders, like everyone else, suffer from illusory superiority. …

Gary Hamel, author of “What Matters Now,” told me, “We need to create organizations where average leaders can enjoy extraordinary success. The biggest constraints we face are management models not business models or strategies. We need our organizations to become more human.” (Gary is ranked #1 most influential business thinker by the Wall Street Journal.)

How management hinders leaders:

1. Management establishes limiting controls. People don’t enjoy being controlled, especially leaders.
2. Management centralizes authority. Leaders give authority while maintaining responsibility.
3. Management creates hierarchies with stagnating approvals. “Ask yourself how many levels must people fight through in order to get something done?” Hamel. …

Final note:

I believe “average” people possess pockets of genius that represent our greatest potential.”

Steve Jobs, Reconsidered

By Susan Cramm   Article

“I finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs over Christmas break and I can’t stop thinking about it. The book disturbed me. I love Apple products; I wanted to admire Steve Jobs. But I don’t.

Great leaders don’t call people names. They don’t treat a person like a prince one day and a serf the next. They don’t practice intimidating stares in the mirror. They don’t treat relationships as if they were commodities to be traded. It’s not OK for leaders — for anyone — to abuse people. And I’m disturbed that Jobs is being hailed, as Isaacson writes, as “the greatest business executive of our era,” rather than as a flawed leader whose extraordinary talents and organizational abilities allowed him the freedom to mistreat others. …

For Jobs, it appears that being and staying mean was a conscious choice. According to his biographer, Jobs:

• Trained himself to intimidate others by honing a “trick of using stares and silences to master other people.”
• Denied IPO stock options to a colleague who “joined Apple when it was headquartered in Jobs’ garage.”
• Possessed “an uncanny capacity to know” other individuals’ weak points and make them “feel small.”
• Took credit for ideas that were not his. “When told of a new idea, he will immediately attack it” and, if it is a good one, “he will soon be telling people about it as though it was his own.” …

If you’re looking for role models, reread Jim Collins’s book, Good to Great. If you do, you’ll find plenty of leaders who took care of their customers, their companies, and their people by building “enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.” Among those I spoke with about the Jobs biography, a very smart and compassionate leader made me laugh when he said, “I don’t want my children to grow up to be Steve Jobs.””

Do Your People Trust You?

By Linda Hill & Kent Lineback   Article

“When we talk to managers, we often ask, “Do your people trust you?” Most are taken aback. It’s not something they’re often asked or a question they’ve even asked themselves. After some thought, most eventually say something like, “Well, I think so. I hope so. No one’s said he doesn’t.”

… even as the person in charge, the one with authority, you can ultimately influence people only to the extent they are willing to be influenced by you. And that willingness will depend on whether they trust you. … As the boss, you can demand compliance but you must earn commitment, and the coin of that realm is trust. … As we explore this topic with managers, we find it’s a subject both familiar and unfamiliar. Most people don’t know how to think about it constructively. Why?

First, they often don’t realize how context-sensitive trust is. Your people certainly wouldn’t trust you, say, to do brain surgery on one of their children, and you would find that lack of trust completely understandable. You’re not to be trusted in that context. So, when we ask, “Do your people trust you?” we’re not asking about people’s confidence in you as a person in general — whether, for example, they think you will repay them promptly if you borrow $10. Instead, we’re really asking, “Do your people trust you as a boss?” For them to accept you as a boss, they must trust you in that context. When we delve later into the components of trust, you’ll see why context is so important.

The second reason most managers feel a little lost when they think about trust is that most of us resist the idea that trust is something you can actively and consciously encourage. ….”

Top 5 Myths About Selling

By Geoffrey James   Article

“Here are the five dumbest beliefs that people have about “how to sell”:

1. The Customer Is Always Right

… In fact, though, customers are frequently unreasonable and overly demanding. A big part of selling is educating such customers so that they have more realistic expectations. This means telling the customer he’s wrong when he actually is.

2. Customers Know What They Want

In fact, customers frequently often have bizarre ideas about what they want and need–and, consequently, about what they ought to buy. Don’t cater to these whims. It’s up to you, as a responsible seller, to figure out what’s actually needed and provide your best opinion about how to satisfy that need.

3. Every Prospect Is a Potential Sale

If you think that everyone is a customer, you’ll end up pursuing fictional opportunities. (This is called “chasing garbage trucks, not Brinks trucks.”) If you’re selling something, your No. 1 job is to eliminate prospects that don’t have enough money to buy your offering or don’t have enough need to justify the purchase. …

4. You Should Never Take ‘No’ for an Answer

When prospects have all sorts of objections to buying, you’re probably wasting your time trying to sell to them. … Don’t obsess on any one deal–and always remember that if you hear “no” more than once, it means “no.”

5. The Best Salespeople Are Extroverts

Many (even most) of today’s sales situations are best suited for people who are a little bit introverted, and better at listening than talking. In fact, some of the best and most effective sales training programs available today are based on listening techniques originally developed for psychologists and counselors–who aren’t known for being extroverted.”

Treat your career like a startup

By MARTINZWILLING   Article

7 Ways and Why to Treat Your Career Like a Startup

“Adopt the mindset of a permanent beta. “Finished” ought to be an F-word for all of us. We are all works in progress. … Keeping your career in permanent beta forces you to acknowledge that you have bugs, and intend to improve yourself.

Regularly assess and refine your competitive advantage. … Smart professionals constantly assess the market, and strengthen and diversify skills.

Plan to pivot as you learn. … Don’t wait for something to fail before you learn, or before you consider a change or pivot. The best pivots are to take advantage of an upside, rather than avoid a downside.

Build and use your network. World-class professionals don’t try to take on the world alone. People playing a solo game will always lose out to a team. …

Pursue breakout opportunities. … Others taking breakout opportunities can be dismissed as lucky, but more often it’s the result of their work to be at the right place at the right time, with the right mindset. …

Take intelligent risks. … In a changing world, minimizing risk is one of the riskiest things you can do. The most intelligent risks are those where the potential downside is limited, but the potential upside is virtually unlimited.

Maintain that sense of urgency. … For every professional, opportunities come and go at an astonishing speed, so only a continuing sense of urgency will keep you alert.”

There’s a lot of dishonesty

Source

Never ask employees to do

By Jeff Haden   Article

9 Things You Should Never Ask Employees to Do

“You’re the boss. You have the power. Awesome. Just don’t use your power to do things like this:

Pressure employees to attend “social” events. … “pressure” can be as simple as saying, “Hey, Mark, I hope you can come to the Christmas party… I hope we see you there…” While you may simply be letting Mark know how much you enjoy his company, if he doesn’t want to go he hears, “Mark, you better be at the party or I will be very disappointed in you.”

Ask an employee to do something you already asked another employee to do. You assign Joe a project. The day you needed it completed you realize Joe hasn’t finished… and probably won’t. You’re frustrated with Joe, and you really need it done, so you plop it on Mary’s desk. You know she’ll get it done. Maybe so, but she’ll resent it. Leave Mary alone. Deal with Joe.

Ask employees to evaluate themselves. Employees who do a great job always question why they need to evaluate themselves. Shouldn’t you already know they do a great job? Employees who do a poor job rarely rate themselves as poor, turning what could have been a constructive feedback session into an argument. …

Ask employees to evaluate their peers. I’ve done peer evaluations. It sucks. “Peer” means “work together.” Who wants to criticize someone they have to work with afterwards? Claim evaluations are confidential all you want; people figure out who said what about whom. …

Ask employees to alert you when you “veer off course.” One of my bosses was really long-winded. He knew it, and he asked me to signal him when I thought he was monopolizing a meeting. I did it a couple times; each time he waved me off, probably because what he was saying was just too darned important. Never ask employees to monitor your performance. To the employee, it’s a no-win situation.”

Worse than Greece

Source

Ethics hit your gadget prices

BY KIT EATON   Article

Apple And Foxconn’s Ethics Hit Your Gadget Prices

“1. Apple, facing enormous criticism about unfair treatment of workers in its supply chain–who technically work for a totally different company, in a different nation with a vastly different social and economic background–has tried to improve the situation, and has admitted errors publicly.

2. Foxconn faced controversy in the past over its supposed suicide problem. As a harsh statistic it’s worth pointing out its actually much lower than the Chinese average. Infer from this what you like about worker conditions. And remember that many potential employees are battling to work at Foxconn compared to its competitors.

3. In early 2011 it was noted that China already had the third highest labor costs in the emerging Asian economies.

4. China’s work ethics, worker conditions, and economic situation are radically different than those in the U.S., influenced by Chinese politics, history, local economic effects, laws, social habits, and tradition.

5. Raw global economics and relative currency values mean that the local equivalent of a dollar can go further in many nations than you may expect it to go in the U.S. Anecdotallya can of Coke costs $0.34 at equivalent rates.

Now, here’s more to chew on: Thanks to rising Chinese wages, brought on partly by economic booms caused by Western revenues at firms like Foxconn, partly thanks to recent events, Dell and HP have said they’ll have to pass on the costs to the consumers. That means many consumers in the U.S., a vocal number among which have recently taken to pressing Apple, and Apple alone, for improvements and an “ethical iPhone.”

Stepping stones and stumbling blocks

By Michael Josephson   Source 

“The difference between stepping stones and stumbling blocks is not in the event itself but how you think about it and what you do after it. Every failure and setback can become part of your success or an excuse for quitting or failing. People who develop the discipline of positivity are both happier and more successful.”