John A. Daly: An interview by Bob Morris

Daly is the Liddell Professor of Communication and TCB Professor of Management at The University of Texas at Austin. While at the university, he has won every major Daly is the Liddell Professor of Communication and TCB Professor of Management at The University of Texas at Austin. While at the university, he has won every major award given on campus for undergraduate teaching. John has been the president of the National Communication Association, and served on the Board of Directors of both the International Customer Service Association and the International Communication Association. He is one of fewer than 70 scholars in the world who is a Fellow of the International Communication Association. Fellows are recognized for their major scholarly contributions.

He has published numerous research articles in scholarly periodicals and produced eight books. John’s latest book is Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others. His work has also appeared in any number of popular outlets including Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, and New York Times. He has also worked with many organizations on topics related to communication, advocacy and leadership. These include such major firms as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Merck, Pfizer, USAA, Union Pacific, Kraft, Apple, IBM, Shell, ExxonMobil, Texas Instruments, 3M and Dell. In addition, he worked at the White House some years ago.

Here is an excerpt from my interview of him. To read the complete interview, please click here.

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Morris: Before discussing Advocacy, a few general questions. First, who has had the greatest influence on your personal growth? How so?

Daly: Honestly, my wife. She is far wiser than anyone else I know.

Morris: The greatest impact on your professional development? How so?

Daly: My students who ask brilliant questions on a regular basis.

Morris: Years ago, was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course you continue to follow? Please explain.

Daly: In terms of my work on advocacy, the turning point was when I was working with a company and one brilliant employee complained he didn’t get the credit he deserved for his ideas. He was right. This prompted me to start exploring what it takes for people, like this scientist, to get their ideas adopted.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education been invaluable to what you have accomplished in life thus far?

Daly: All of it has mattered. I was at different stages of personal growth at different points in my career. My undergraduate years were lots of fun and thanks to some splendid faculty I pursued graduate school. And graduate school offered me brilliant mentors and the opportunity to do what I like the most—research and teach.

Morris: What do you know now about business world that you wish you knew when you when to work full-time for the first time? Why?

Daly: The politics are very real. It isn’t your accomplishment that matter alone; it is your ability to market those accomplishments that often make the real difference. There is a politics to ideas.

Morris: Of all the films that you have seen, which – in your opinion – best dramatizes important business principles? Please explain.

Daly: An old movie — Twelve o’Clock High comes to mind…it is about leadership, teamwork, delegation.

Morris: From which non-business book have you learned the most valuable lessons about business? Please explain.

Daly: Two answers For general knowledge — biographies; for my interest in advocacy — Machiavelli’s The Prince.

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To read the complete interview, please click here.

John cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:

His faculty page.

Communication Studies page.

McCombs School of Business page.

John’s Amazon page.

Dan Pink on “the puzzle of innovation”: A TED video

 

I check out TED videos every chance I get because they comprise a treasury of information, insights, and wisdom provided by thought leaders in one or more of three fields: Technology, Entertainment, and Design. Dan Pink has much of value to say about all three.

 

He is the author of several provocative, bestselling books about the changing world of work. His latest book, DRiVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, uses 40 years of behavioral science to overturn the conventional wisdom about human motivation and offer a more effective path to high performance. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future charts the rise of right-brain thinking in modern economies and describes the six abilities individuals and organizations must master in an outsourced, automated age. A Whole New Mind is a long-running New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller that has been translated into 21 languages. Pink’s first book, Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself, was a Washington Post bestseller that Publishers Weekly says it “has become a cornerstone of employee-management relations.” His next book, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, will be published in December (2012).

 

His articles on business and technology appear in many publications, including The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired, where he is a contributing editor. A free agent himself, Dan held his last real job in the White House, where he served from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. He also worked as an aide to U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich and in other positions in politics and government. He received a BA, with honors, from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Yale Law School. To his lasting joy, he has never practiced law.

 

To watch a video during which he discusses “the puzzle of innovation,” please click here.

 

To check out my interview of him,  please click here.

 

 

 

Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton: An interview by Bob Morris

Internationally recognized workplace experts Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton are partners in the consulting firm The Culture Works.

Adrian Gostick

Adrian Gostick is the author of several best-selling books on corporate culture, including the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers The Carrot Principle and All In. His research has been called a “must read for modern-day managers” by Larry King of CNN, “fascinating,” by Fortune magazine and “admirable and startling” by the Wall Street Journal. As a leadership expert, he has appeared on numerous television programs including NBC’s Today Show and has been quoted in dozens of business publications and magazines.

 

 

 

Chester Elton

Chester Elton has been called the “apostle of appreciation,” by the Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest newspaper, and “creative and refreshing” by the New York Times. The co-author of All In, The Carrot Principle and The Orange Revolution, his books have sold more than a million copies worldwide. Chester has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Fast Company magazine, and New York Times, and he appears in a weekly segment on CBS News Radio.

Here is a brief excerpt from my interview of Adrian and Chester.

To read the complete interview, please click here.

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Morris: Before discussing All In, a few general questions. First, who has had the greatest influence on your personal and professional growth? How so?

Gostick: We’ve talked about this often. Our parents were our first bosses—they gave us our moral compass, goals, and our first recognition. My dad worked 25 years for Rolls Royce in England. He taught me the value of working someplace where you can make a difference—not chasing money but doing work that you found purposeful.

Morris: Years ago, was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course you continue to follow? Please explain.

Elton: About 15 years ago now I was working as a consultant with some large organizations in the Northeast. We were working at the time on employee recognition ideas and we were doing some really innovative things. I realized no one had ever written the definitive work on recognition. There were these 101 ways books. Most managers had one on their shelf, but no one ever read them. Just then my firm hired Adrian as its head of communication. We collaborated on our first book in the Carrot line and it really took off. Finally Simon & Schuster contacted us to do a big research book on the subject and that became The Carrot Principle. That book has now been translated in 25 languages and is sold around the world.

Gostick: Over the years since that release our work has taken us to the characteristics of the world’s best teams and now on to culture—something that we are hearing more and more from our clients. They want to know how to build not only a great corporate culture, but effective cultures in each of their smaller teams.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education been invaluable to what you have accomplished in life thus far?

Gostick: I was able to study 50 years of leadership theory and practicum in my master’s program at Seton Hall, and it has provided the backbone of the knowledge we use every day. My undergraduate work was in journalism, and my early work as a newspaper reporter taught me how to research, write, and rewrite.

Morris: To what extent (if any) does All In in final form differ significantly from what you originally envisioned?

Elton: We originally handed in the manuscript for All In to Simon & Schuster in the late summer of 2011. Four months later it went to press. Those four months were some of the hardest in our lives as our editor threw out half the book and demanded entire new chapters. While we had explained our findings well, we think, she pushed us to make the takeaways relevant for real business leaders. We spent so much time on explaining what a great culture looks like, we had neglected to tell readers “how” to do it. So many business books fall into that trap, and we are so grateful to Emily Loose, our editor, for pushing us to answer that paramount question: “I do what?”

Morris: Recent research studies by highly reputable firms such as Gallup and Towers Watson indicate that in a U.S. workforce, on average, fewer than 30% of the employees are actively and positively engaged; as for the others, they are either passively engaged (“mailing it in”) or actively disengaged. How specifically can business leaders increase the percentage of actively and positively engaged employees within their organizations?

Gostick: First, managers should understand there are some simple things they can do tomorrow that will make a big difference in their culture, but so few managers do them. For instance, the great leaders in our study treated their people like partners in the organization. That meant they created for their people a sense of connection by teaching them how their jobs impact the larger organization. And they showed them growth opportunities, how they can grow and develop with the company.

Next, these leaders also created a culture of rooting for each other with much greater levels of recognition and rewards. And finally, managers learned to create a share everything culture, where they honest and openly discussed issues.

Elton: Simple things really, but powerful. It comes down to opportunity, recognition and communication. Three things you can do right way to see results.

Morris: Given your response to the previous question, to what extent will those initiatives also help to retain valued employees who might otherwise leave?

Elton: The number one and number two reasons key performers leave an organization: one—I don’t feel in on things, and two—I don’t feel appreciated. It’s not money, it’s not job growth, people most often leave for things that are absolutely in our control as managers.

Morris: What do you know now about the business world that you wish you knew when you began your first full-time job? Please explain.

Gostick: When I first became a manager, I didn’t realize that there were people who did a good job but who were toxic to the culture. I waited much too long to get rid of those people.

Morris: Here’s a hypothetical question. If there were a monument honoring business leaders comparable with the one honoring U.S. Presidents on Mount Rushmore, sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum, which four would you select? Please explain each choice.

Elton: I’ll give you one. One of our favorite leaders is someone most people have never heard of: Scott O’Neal. He’s president of Madison Square Garden Sports, and he’s the best leader we have ever met. One thing Scott does with every new hire: He asks them where they want to be in five years, and then he commits to help them get there if they promise to give 100 percent to him every day. And people do it, and in turn he’s helped business leaders all over the sports world achieve their dreams. He lives up to his promise.

Gostick: Here’s another one: Doria Camaraza. We feature her in chapter three of All In. Doria is the general manager of American Express’ 3,000-person call center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She is simply amazing. She seems to know every one of her employees, and spends her days making people included and recognized and wonderful. Her call center has employee turnover that is one fifth the national average and has the best efficiency and productivity numbers in the call center industry. My favorite thing she does is called Tribute, where she gathers all her employees together once a month and the leaders come out dancing to Lady Gaga or Aerosmith and then she recognizes a dozen people for living the core values of American Express. It’s really powerful and there are a lot of tears.

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To read the complete interview, please click here.

Adrian and Chester cordially invite you to check out the resources at these websites:

The Culture Works

Amazon.com

Privacy Concerns for Social Media Increase

A recent study conducted by Pew Research published on Friday, February 24 in the Washington Post, and distributed nationally by the Associated Press, indicated that Social Media users are “managing their privacy settings and their online reputation more often than they did two years earlier.”  You can read the entire article by clicking here.

Nearly half of respondents said that they deleted comments from their profile, where two years ago, only 36 percent indicated the same thing.

Here are some other findings, published here directly from the article, that may interest you.  The paragraph labels in red are my own.

Women.  Women are much more likely than men to restrict their profiles. Pew found that 67 percent of women set their profiles so that only their “friends” can see it. Only 48 percent of men did the same.

Education.  Think all that time in school taught you something? People with the highest levels of education reported having the most difficulty figuring out their privacy settings. That said, only 2 percent of social media users described privacy controls as “very difficult to manage.”

Privacy.  The report found no significant differences in people’s basic privacy controls by age. In other words, younger people were just as likely to use privacy controls as older people. Sixty-two percent of teens and 58 percent of adults restricted access to their profiles to friends only.

Young Adults.  Young adults were more likely than older people to delete unwanted comments. Fifty-six percent of social media users aged 18 to 29 said they have deleted comments that others have made on their profile, compared with 40 percent of those aged 30 to 49 and 34 percent of people aged 50 to 64.

Men.  Men are more likely to post something they later regret. Fifteen percent of male respondents said they posted something regrettable, compared with 8 percent of female respondents.

Regrets. Possibly proving that with age comes wisdom, young adults were more likely to post something regrettable than their older counterparts. Fifteen percent of social network users aged 18 to 29 said they have posted something regrettable. Only 5 percent of people over 50 said the same thing.

Here is how the study was done.  Pew Research conducted a phone survey of 2,277 adults in April and May 2011. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The data about teens came from a separate phone survey Pew conducted with teenagers and their parents.

Are you surprised by this?  Is your own use in line with these findings?   What would you have said if you were surveyed with the same questions?

Let’s talk about it really soon!

Kristi Hedges: An interview by Bob Morris

Kristi Hedges is a leadership coach, speaker and author. In her 20-year career working with leaders to help them communicate more effectively she’s encountered every personality type imaginable, yet remains more than a little passionate that anyone can learn presence. Her workshops and leadership coaching programs have been utilized by CEOs and teams of all sizes in companies spanning the Fortune 500, government, non-profit and privately held businesses. She runs her own coaching practice, The Hedges Company, and is a founding partner in the leadership development firm, Element North.

Kristi blogs on leadership for Forbes.com, created and penned “The Leadership Factor” column for Entrepreneur.com. She’s been featured in publications such as Washington Post, Reuters, MSNBC.com, and CNBC.com. She’s been honored as one of the “50 Women Who Mean Business in Washington, D.C.” and as an owner of a top 25 Largest Women-Owned Businesses by the Washington Business Journal.

Prior to becoming a leadership coach, Kristi co-founded and ran one of the first technology communications firms in the Washington, D.C. area for a decade before successfully selling her interest. Her career highlights also include working for a national news outlet, and as a political consultant for dozens of electoral campaigns from U.S. President to statewide offices.

Here is an excerpt from an interview of her. To read the complete interview, please click here.

*     *     *

Morris: Was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) years ago that set you on the career course that you continue to follow? Please explain.

Hedges: I’m not sure there was one point, but rather many that directed me in my career. As an entrepreneur, leadership was my constant puzzle that was always studied, toyed with, improved, and yet unsolved. It became my passion, and that led me to become a leadership coach after I sold my interest in my last company.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education proven invaluable to what you have accomplished thus far?

Hedges: I have two degrees in communications, and my masters is in political communication and persuasion. They’ve both influenced my career, but as I wrote The Power of Presence, I realized that my graduate research provided a framework for many of the ideas I had about interpersonal communication and influence. In a way they were so embedded in my strategies, I had forgotten they were there.

Morris: What do you know now about the business world that you wish you knew when you completed your formal education and first went to work full-time?

Hedges: I wish I’d had a better sense of when to push and when to let things play out. I was very ambitious, impatient and worked my tail off — but I lacked perspective. I often underestimated how much time it takes to get the big picture. I knew the power of relationships, but I wish I would have developed deeper ones and asked for mentorship.

Morris: Opinions are divided (sometimes sharply divided) on the importance of charisma to effective leadership. What do you think?

Hedges: I actually hate the topic of charisma in leadership! I just don’t find it helpful. It makes those who don’t consider themselves charismatic (and frankly, few do) feel powerless to become stronger leaders. If you need to have this innate quality, why bother trying?

Jim Collins introduced the “hedgehog” style of leadership in Good to Great, as the most successful one. I agree with him. Great leaders can be charismatic, but it’s not a requirement.

Morris: However different the greatest leaders throughout history may be in most respects, what do all of them share in common in terms of their presence?

Hedges: Great leaders care deeply about the larger cause, whether it’s saving the environment or launching a company. They are passionate and know how to communicate their commitment to others. In my opinion, there is no substitute for a fire in the belly.

Morris: I don’t know about you but most (if not all) of the most valuable life lessons I have learned were from failure, not success. You have observed a countless number of people who do or don’t possess highly-developed personal presence. Here’s a two-part question. First, what are the most valuable lessons to be learned from those who do?

Hedges: People with great presence have an ability to relate to others. There’s an openness there, an authentic connection, and trustworthiness. They make others feel “more than” rather than diminished, even from a short conversation.

Morris: From those who do not possess a highly-developed personal presence?

Hedges: Many times a weak presence comes from being overly guarded or perfectionistic. If we don’t know someone or they’re intimidating, we can’t relate. To have presence, you need to blend your competency with your humanity. You can be powerful and still be a real person.

Morris: I have never been physically present in an audience to which Steve Jobs spoke but I have probably seen most (if not all) of the films of him in action. In your opinion, why was he an “insanely great” public speaker?

Hedges: Steve Jobs staged every speech down to the smallest detail. He was meticulous about how he communicated. Anyone who takes their communication that seriously is going to be good. However, Jobs’ greatness came from his authentic passion for Apple products. He knew how to use his own excitement to tap into the energy of others. He also knew that speeches should be about an experience, not words on a screen. He make the audience part of the conversation, not merely observers.

Morris: Through your association with The Hedges Company and Element North, you have helped numerous companies to improve their leadership development programs. Presumably you begin each new relationship with a situation analysis. What are you most eager to learn that you did not already know? Why?

Hedges: I always start with gathering the impression of leadership from the broader company. Leaders set the tone and cement the culture. If they are seen as uncaring or incompetent, that has to be addressed first. No leadership program will work if there’s a fundamental problem at the top. It’s always interesting to juxtapose those findings against what a company’s leadership believes their impression to be. If there’s a disconnect, that’s a red flag.

*     *     *

To read the complete interview, please click here.

Kristi Hedges cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:

http://www.thehedgescompany.com

http://www.elementnorth.com/index.html

The Power of Presence: Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others

You can also follow her on Twitter @kristihedges.

One on One: A book review by Bob Morris

One on One: Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game
John Feinstein
Little, Brown & Company (2011)

Memorable moments and unforgettable people during a ten-book journey…thus far…featured in an eleventh book

Others have their reasons for holding this book in high regard. Here are three of mine. First, with all due respect to the celebrities in sports with whom John Feinstein has been directly associated (e.g. Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, John McEnroe, Arnold Palmer, Dean Smith, and Tiger Woods), I enjoyed even more being introduced to others who offer unique insights into the sub texture of “the thrill of victory …and the agony of defeat,” a tag line associated with the ABC’s Wide World of Sports program on television  (1961-1998). They include Steve Alford, Damon Bailey, Jim Cantelupe, Steve Kerr, Christina and Derek Klein, Esther Newberg, George Solomon, and Ted Tinling. For reasons best revealed in the book, each is a major contributor to Feinstein’s personal growth and professional development.

Also, I really appreciate sharing Feinstein’s perspectives on what he enjoys most (and least) about his career in sports journalism thus far, especially his take on what it is like to have access to so many major events, scrambling to make both domestic and international travel connections, and coping with hamster-brained “officials” who deny access (i.e. handlers, gatekeepers, security guards). What did he learn (and from whom did he learn it) about how to manage the logistics of travel, access, accommodations, food, rest and relaxation, and aspects of extensive travel?

Finally, there are his thorny relationships with various people, notably with Bob Knight, but also with Jim Courier, Rick Pitino, Bobby Valentine, Jim Valvano, and Tiger Woods. Eventually, he seems to have achieved mutual (albeit somewhat grudging) respect with each. Knowing only what Feinstein shares about these relationships, I have only his point-of-view but he seems to make an effort to portray both sides of the given disagreements, misunderstandings, and accusations. There are other, less volatile relationships that Feinstein especially enjoys, such as those with his Washington Post colleague, Bob Woodward, as well as with Bud Collins, Sally Jenkins, Ivan Lendl, Jeff Neuman, and David Robinson.

My personal co-favorites among Feinstein’s ten previous books are Civil War and Let Me Tell You a Story but he will probably be best-remembered for Season on the Brink. All are first-rate. Hopefully, he will publish several more books in years to come and then another One on One.

What Does Warren Buffett Know That Steve Jobs Didn’t?

I thought it was interesting when Warren Buffett made a major turnaround and chose to invest in a traditional newspaper.  On November 30, Berkshire Hathaway, where Buffett is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, purchased the Omaha World-Herald Company, publisher of six daily papers in Nebraska and Iowa.  Such a deal is counter to the flow of his investment history, and represents a shift from his position about traditional papers.  In 2009, he stated that “we would not buy them at any price.”  You can read a summary of this transaction from the Wall Street Journal by clicking here, and view expert analysis in a video by clicking here.

There is something that Warren Buffett knows that Steve Jobs did not.  Buffett is one of the richest and most successful investors in business history.

In the Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz recalled what Jobs said about the future of newspapers in his column entitled “Steve Jobs and the Future of Newspapers” (October 9, 2011).  Jobs said, “The only problem is that the [Wall Street] Journal is a newspaper and so is printed on newsprint.”  Further, he recalled Jobs saying “Whenever I have the time to pick up the printed version of the newspaper (sic), I wish I could do this all the time, but our lives are not like that any more.”  Crovitz summarized Jobs’ position by writing “he predicted that in five years there would be no more printed newspapers.”

That conversation was in 2006, so Jobs’ deadline has passed.  Sorry – there are still newspapers printed, delivered, purchased, and read in the traditional manner.  Since then, many newspapers have disappeared and many others are in financial trouble.  Some have pushed their emphasis to online editions, and now charge for access.

One of the great supporters of the traditional newspaper remains Donald Graham, the Chairman of the Washington Post Company, who said in a corporate news column in the Wall Street Journal, published on December 3-4, 2011 (p. B3), that he would neither sell nor spinoff the flagship newspaper or any of his company’s core businesses.

There is no question that reading online content from newspaper sites, such as the Huffington Post, is trendy, popular, and convenient.

To be sure, however, there are enough advertisers and enough subscribers to keep many printed versions going.  There are still plenty of people who want to get their paper from the front lawn, get their coffee, get back under the covers, and fold the pages to explore the content.  There are still enough people who spend enough time using digital devices who refuse to carry this mode into their treasured leisure time.  They want to sit in their easy chair, hold a paper, turn it, and even clip out articles of interest to them.  I subscribe to the Dallas Morning News and Wall Street Journal print versions, as well as the Wall Street Journal online edition.  The amount of time I spend with the online edition is about 2% compared with the traditional version.

I don’t think that Warren Buffett throws money away.  Something hit him to invest money in a paper whose weekday circulation has fallen 24% since 2006.   Maybe he wanted a challenge.  Maybe it links to his childhood occupation of delivering the Washington Post to homes in weathly neighborhoods.  I don’t know.  But, I do believe that he knew something about traditional newspapers that Steve Jobs didn’t.  And, for me, I will be under the covers reading my paper and sipping my coffee.  I’ll be digital during the day soon enough.

What do you think?  Let’s talk about it really soon!

Still Waiting for Superwoman

Richard D. Kahlenberg

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Richard D. Kahlenberg for Slate magazine. To read the complete article, please click here.

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What Michelle Rhee’s fans don’t get about education reform

The national press and political class adore Michelle Rhee, who ran the D.C. public schools from 2007 until 2010. She’s appeared on the cover of Time and Newsweek, chatted on television with Oprah and David Gregory, and starred in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary Waiting for Superman and a 12-part series on PBS’ the NewsHour. This level of attention is unheard of for a schools chancellor of any size district, much less the 108th largest in the country.

For many, Rhee is the heroine in a morality play that draws on the power of the civil rights movement. In Washington, D.C., disadvantaged black and brown children are being robbed of an education, and Rhee has been battling the forces that were keeping them down: the teachers’ union. Whereas the union selfishly put adults first, Rhee puts kids first. The new organization she just founded, StudentsFirst, is hoping to raise $1 billion explicitly to counter the political influence of the unions.

In years past, Republicans like Bob Dole castigated teachers’ unions as a central impediment to good schools, which made political and policy sense because the unions are strong supporters of Democratic candidates and provide the political muscle that has stymied conservative school-privatization initiatives. But today the critique of unions is advanced not just by conservatives like George Will, but liberals like Jonathan Alter and Nicholas Kristof; not just the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, but also of the Washington Post and New York Times. And in the 2008 presidential debate at Hofstra University, Barack Obama called Rhee, one of the nation’s leading critics of unions, a “wonderful new superintendent.

Rhee’s message about education reform is very seductive because it’s simple and optimistic. Childhood poverty and economic school segregation, in Rhee’s world, are just “excuses” for teacher failure. If we could just get the unions to agree to stop protecting bad teachers and allow great teachers to be paid more, she says, we could make all the difference in education. The narrative is attractive because it indeed would be wonderful if poverty and segregation didn’t matter, and if heroic teachers could consistently overcome the odds for students whom everyone agrees deserve a better shot in life.

The fact that Rhee is a hard-working Ivy League graduate makes the elite press respect her as one of their own. And Rhee’s flair for the dramatic makes her irresistible. In his well-written and highly favorable biography, The Bee Eater, Richard Whitmire recounts that as a teacher in Baltimore, Rhee grabbed the attention of her students one day when she swatted a bee flying around the classroom and promptly swallowed it. As a chancellor, Rhee once told a film crew, “I’m going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?”

Most education researchers, though, recognize that Rhee’s simple vision of heroic teachers saving American education is a fantasy, and that her dramatic, often authoritarian, style is ill-suited for education. If the ability to fire bad teachers and pay great teachers more were the key missing ingredient in education reform, why haven’t charter schools, 88% of which are nonunionized and have that flexibility, lit the education world on fire? Why did the nation’s most comprehensive study of charter schools, conducted by Stanford University researchers and sponsored by pro-charter foundations, conclude that charters outperformed regular public schools only 17 percent of the time, and actually did significantly worse 37 percent of the time? Why don’t Southern states, which have weak teachers’ unions, or none at all, outperform other parts of the country? Rhee often noted that poor blacks in New York are two years ahead of poor blacks in Washington, which properly illustrates that demography is not destiny, but New York didn’t get ahead by firing bad teachers. Chancellor Joel Klein terminated only three teachers for incompetence between 2008 and 2010.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and author of Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy and All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools Through Public School Choice.

Five myths about how to create jobs

The website of McKinsey & Company’s McKinsey Quarterly continues to feature some of the most valuable material concerning major issues, such as job creation. In the article that follows (first published in February, 2010), James Manyika and Byron Auguste identify and then invalidate five myths about how to create jobs that continue to remain remarkably durable. I urge you to click here so that you can check out the wealth of resources at the Quarterly‘s website, sign up for email alerts, and obtain subscription information.

As you read the article, keep in mind what has — and hasn’t — happened since it was written. “Everything changes, nothing changes….”

*     *     *

Source: McKinsey Global Institute

With unemployment hovering just below 10 percent, job creation is now priority number one in Washington. But America’s jobs challenge is a marathon, not a sprint.

[Here are the first two myths that Manyika and Auguste discuss. To read the complete article, please click here.]

With the unemployment rate in the United States lingering just below 10 percent and the midterm elections just nine months away, job creation has become the top priority in Washington. President Obama has called for transferring $30 billion in repaid bank bailout money to a small-business lending fund, saying, “Jobs will be our number one focus in 2010, and we’re going to start where most new jobs do: with small business.” The fund is among several measures—such as tax incentives, infrastructure projects, and efforts to increase exports—that the White House has proposed to help boost employment. As Americans consider the various approaches, we must have realistic expectations. We need to debunk some myths about what it takes to stimulate job growth.

1. Surely there’s a quick fix.

Oh, were that only the case. The scale of the challenge is enormous. Quick action is important, but remember that the US economy has lost more than 7 million jobs in the past two years. The country would need to create more than 200,000 net new jobs each month for the next seven years to get unemployment back to what was once considered a normal 5 percent. Quick fixes focused on 2010 alone won’t be enough.

Of course, the right mix of government policies can help. But even if Obama’s proposals were enacted right away and they accomplished all that he hopes, they would at best represent a good start. America’s jobs challenge is a multiyear marathon, not a sprint.

2. The key to boosting employment quickly is to help small businesses.

New jobs come from both small and big businesses. From 1987 through 2005, nearly a third of net new jobs were created by businesses that each employed more than 500 workers. By 2005, these big companies accounted for about half of the country’s total employment, although they made up less than 1 percent of all US firms.

But a look at the past two economic booms shows that the pace of job creation depends on more than the size of the businesses. During the economic expansion of the 1990s, large US multinational corporations—which employ an average of about 1,000 workers each in the United States—created jobs more rapidly than other companies. This was because they dominated computer and electronics manufacturing, the sector that drove much of that boom. During the more recent expansion of 2002–07, most of the net new jobs came from local service sectors, such as health care, construction, and real estate—which comprise both large and small businesses.

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James Manyika is the San Francisco–based director of the McKinsey Global Institute. Byron Auguste is a director in McKinsey’s Washington, DC, office. This article originally appeared in the Washington Post, on February 7, 2010. Regrettably, there has been little improvement of the job market since then.

Lessons about evolution from bird watching

Dan Ariely

Here is an excerpt from an article co-authored by Amit and Dan Ariely. Note how, once again, insatiable curiosity drives someone to understand phenomena, in this instance the possible correlations between physical characteristics of birds and their behavior. In his recently published book, The Corner Office, Adam Bryant identifies five characteristics that all great leaders share in common. One of them is insatiable curiosity.

To read the complete article and check out other resources, please click here.

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For the past few weeks, my 8-year old son Amit and I have been observing birds, paying attention to their individual and particular behavior.  We noticed that some of the birds we observed were different in their physical characteristics like color, shape and size, and that these traits varied with their behavior. This made us wonder about the possible evolutionary links between the appearance of the birds on one hand and their respective behavior on the other.

The first difference that stood out to us was between the small and large red birds. Although the larger ones were about twice as big, their ability to fly was about the same — but what was very different about the two kinds was that the larger red birds were much more aggressive and caused more damage when they attacked. Of course, the evolutionary reason for this difference in aggression seems straightforward; as the subtype of birds gets larger, they need more food, and with this increased requirement, aggression becomes an important survival skill.

The yellow subtype of birds were slightly more of a challenge to figure out. Other than being yellow, their general characteristics were similar to the red birds — but Amit and I couldn’t help but notice their tendency to suddenly fly at much higher speeds relative to the red birds. We speculated that the evolutionary reason for this difference must be that the red birds, by virtue of their threatening color, are less appealing to predators, and as a consequence they never needed to develop enhanced speed to escape. In contrast, the yellow birds practically invite predators to dine with their appealing color. With this clear disadvantage the yellow birds are forced to rely on an alternative survival mechanism, in this case the valuable skill of speed.

Another interesting feature of the yellow bird is that it is sharper, perhaps because it is a species connected with the woodpecker family.  The yellow birds’ sharpness might also help it further when it needs to break down a structure or cut through wood – which again is most likely connected to their need to compensate for their color disadvantage.

The blue birds were fascinating in their ability to self-replicate, and in all of the cases we observed they produced exactly three offspring. We wondered why the blue birds evolved to produce offspring at such speed and timely consistency, and we determined that the evolutionary reason for this must be that because the blue birds are small and relatively slow, they had to develop a skill for efficient reproduction, thereby hedging their bets and increasing the potential to pass on their genes.

The white birds were even more puzzling. On multiple occasions, we watched them drop their eggs while still in flight, naturally crushing the egg. Initially this seemed to be a counter-evolutionary strategy, but once we inspected the discarded eggs we realized that these eggs were abnormal, and it was probably the white bird’s strategy for dealing with eggs that have a low potential for survival. One additional observation in support of this hypothesis is that the white birds seemed to be much healthier, lighter and happier after the eggs were discarded.

Of course there were many other birds as well, including one particularly interesting black bird, and Amit and I are thinking of continuing to pursue this bird-project for a while. In fact, we are already getting somewhat addicted to it, and we just learned that there are plenty more birds to observe in Rio.
But what really baffles us is this: why are these birds SO angry?

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Dan Ariely is the James B Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. His books include Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions and The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home.

He also publishes widely in the leading scholarly journals in economics, psychology, and business. His work has been featured in a variety of media including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Business 2.0, Scientific American, Science and CNN. He splits his time between Durham NC and the rest of the world.