Unemployment is still high, although the trend is improving. I’m noticing a couple of other trends in this protracted unemployment that are a bit curious to me. This is not a scientific study, just what I’m seeing anecdotally from my network. I notice that headhunters and search firms are still targeting those who are employed when trying to fill positions; those in transition are considered, but usually “second” unless there is already a relationship. Similarly, companies seem to be hiring new graduates when they hire instead of looking for the unfortunate graduates who weren’t able to land a job in previous graduating classes. This seems like a bit of a shortsighted set of tendencies to me. So how are we all adjusting to this present reality?
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There have been a rash of company “screw ups” these last couple of months. Everything from very public embarrassments of leading companies with respect to privacy issues, failures to acknowledge “do not track” requests to my own personal problem with my long time bank. It seems we forget, every now and then, who we are in business for in the first place. And then we wonder why we wind up with regulation, damaged reputation and customers who vote with their feet. And, to make matters worse, we’re right in the middle of campaign season, so we will now be subjected to wacky ideas of how to fix things.
Isn’t it enough to keep people employed and earn a profit?
The short answer is yes CSR matters and no it isn’t enought to just employ people and earn a profit; and it never really has been otherwise. The truth is that now there is more transparency (like it or not) around what companies and business owners are doing. And there is obviously much discontent over the widening gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” or, if you will, between the 1% and the 99% to use the now quite ubiquitous rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street Crowd.
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What is an entrepreneur?
Harvard Business School defined entreprenuer this way: “Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”- Howard Stevenson
I was reminded of this several times this past month. First, over on LinkedIn, one of the groups I frequent posted this great article from Inc. Magazine. It’s an interesting read.
Entrepreneurship is creating something out of nothing. And of course there has to be a fair amount of leadership quality in the entrepreneur, at least in the beginning. Besides this article, I was reminded of the “entrepreneurship puzzle” as I worked with a colleague on his business idea presentation for his peer advisory board. That, in turn reminded me of the success gained by one of my UCI mentees in starting his own business. These two gentlemen are very different in training and background. Yet they both have the desire and the drive to build their own businesses – “without regard to resources currently controlled.”
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A friend started a conversation over on Google+ about standardized testing in education. What prompted her to do so was a Washington Post Local blog post about when an adult took the standardized tests and failed miserably. Her point is that nobody should be surprised at this – on several fronts. To me, the most important of the four points she delineated was that “Teaching methods have changed dramatically in the last decades, and it’s entirely possible he [the adult who took the test] was NEVER previously exposed to questions such as those on this test.”
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A colleague mentioned that he was not able to meet with me over the weekend. He was attending a “Wisdom Weekend” course and would be tied up. Really? Wisdom in only one weekend? I chuckled and made some comment about how he’d be really scary if he had any more wisdom and wondered if he was teaching the course. But of course, this conversation started me down yet another rabbit hole of inquiry. What is wisdom?
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I’ve done my own unofficial and totally unscientific survey and have become “firmly convinced” that if you are selling you are failing. This is a recurring theme and with the downturn in confidence in the economy, it seems as though this will not go away any time soon. Yet, people keep “pushing information” on customers (that means advertising, selling, trying to convince). They are frantically trying to do more of what they used to do, back in the long gone, never to return economy. That dog don’t hunt!
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It’s a problem. Perhaps you were “slow” to adopt to technology. Maybe you really don’t understand this stuff on the internet, e-mail, web sites, Blogs, Facebook and now Google +. Somehow though, because of business or your kids pushing you to join Facebook, you are “hooked.” It’s worse than you think. You now have an obligation to learn how to at least be safe without being paranoid.
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I’ll show you a DEAD Neanderthal. Our brains are evolving quickly and not quickly enough. We no longer have to worry about deciding quickly between saber-toothed tiger and hunger or choose between the “four F’s” (Flight, Fight, Food and, uh . . . Mate). But our brains are still more comfortable deciding quickly and with having certainty rather than uncertainty. And therein lies a challenge for all of us.
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I was speaking with a client yesterday and of course things turned to business. He offered that things were actually starting to “loosen up” for him and that his customers were actually starting to invest again. How that investment is going was of interest. His customers aren’t hiring full time employees. They are investing in productivity and cost reduction projects.
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