TrendWatchers

First piece of advice: Stay calm. Nobody is really sure what a Democratic Congress and an Obama Administration will mean for workforce issues. Second piece of advice: Calm doesn't mean complacent. Do some contingency planning. There could be a number of important legislative and regulatory changes...

The recent meltdown on Wall Street has brought CEO pay back to the forefront of business news, and the election of Barack Obama might help to keep it there for a while. Things had quieted down a bit in recent years since Sarbanes Oxley was enacted and the SEC implemented its new disclosure rules,...

Work ethic: Rarely has an issue been so important to workplace productivity yet so difficult to influence. Some believe that work ethic is something one is born with. Others say it is nurtured through culture, family or community, and some feel it can be learned. But regardless of how it is...

These are troubling times for knowledge-intensive businesses. Back before the economy was based on information and knowledge, it was easier for organizations to lose significant portions of their workforce and still remain productive. Employees weren't as likely to need deep stores of knowledge to...

It's a precarious time for many leaders - as well as their organizations. Consider the example of Robert Willumstad, who until recently was CEO of struggling insurance giant AIG. His ouster was part of the deal in which AIG received an $85 billion government rescue package. On September 18, 2008,...

Beware, knowledge workers: Your halcyon days are numbered. You're in the process of being shaped into bits and bytes, numbers and equations, and your work lives will never be the same. Your organizations' productivity, however, may well spike up even as you're digitized.At least, that's one of the...

There are few, if any, historical periods when trust has meant more than it does today. Just look around. Not only has the recent financial crisis been rooted in a lack of trust in financial institutions, but initial attempts by political leaders to boost confidence in the markets were badly...

Yes, it is scary out there. No one quite knows how close the economy is to teetering off some high cliff and being dashed on the sharp rocks of credit shortfalls, business contractions, weak dollars, high inflation, massive layoffs and a long-term business malaise. Perhaps some form of government...

Coaches have been around a few years - like at least 2,700 of them. Even back in the days of the original Olympic Games in Greece, grizzled, battled-scarred trainers were intent on turning callow youngsters into intensely competitive, javelin-hurling machines. And like today, it wasn't all just for...

Life sure was easier when the world was round - at least for North American companies. Back then, U.S. and Canadian firms tended to have a lot of advantages over their foreign counterparts: more capital investment, better-educated workforces, wealthier customers, freer markets, better...