Issue 1

A decade ago, computers were made for work and productivity. Portable laptops were beginning to become mainstream and cell phones were about as personal as a wallet. Today, smartphones do everything a laptop can do while also functioning as a personal connection to the rest of the world. In 2016, global smartphone sales reached 1.5 billion[i] even though the market did not exist in 2006. Read Full Story

After 11 years of working towards a career as a professional ballerina, I finally decided to pursue a different path. Many factors influenced this decision, but a key concern was the difficult financial situation most dancers face. Ballet is a competitive profession. Few make it to the top, and those that do face a short career life, minimal income, and years of medical bills due to prolonged injuries. Hoping to mitigate the negative consequences of the profession, I researched the initiatives of ballet giants, ABT and Boston Ballet, to analyze what strategic endeavors a company should undertake to experience greater financial stability. All ballet groups should focus on the following three areas:(1) driving ticket sales, (2) connecting with donors, and (3) creating and abiding by a mission statement. Read Full Story

“Option A isn’t available. So, let’s just kick the out of Option B.” Read Full Story

“I used to believe that timing was everything. Now I believe that everything is timing,” says New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink. In his newest book, Pink makes the claim that timing is not an art, but a science. Read Full Story

Students sometimes look ahead towards graduation as the chance to forsake education and focus on building their professional career. Josh Waitzkin challenges this idea of compartmentalized learning by describing his experience in two different, yet interconnected fields: competitive chess and martial arts. Read Full Story

Morten Hansen’s book, Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results, teaches something many modern government and enterprise leaders seem to have forgotten: running a competitive organization requires cooperating with others. Collaborating, the author acknowledges, often means cutting out inflammatory rhetoric within an organization or even towards competing organizations. Sometimes collaborating well means fewer and smaller meetings. And sometimes it even means uprooting long-standing business structures. The book is, overall, a highly enlightening read that encourages changes towards more intelligent communication. It’s most unique and pointed arguments are twofold: (1) T-shaped management, and (2) rewarding collaborative behavior. Read Full Story

Today’s world is becoming evermore uncertain. Financial, informational, and job security may begin to look bleak. What is the solution? Innovation is the solution according to Professors Dryer and Furr. While the title, Innovator’s Method, appears to be written to a narrow audience of entrepreneurs, the book is actually written for leaders and employees in all fields. Read Full Story

The seeds of greatness are planted within each of us. It is by choice whether or not we harvest success. In his national bestseller, Seeds of Greatness, Denis Waitley gives away “the ten best-kept secrets of total success.” By outlining the principles of planted seeds in the context of finding fulfillment in life, his prose, poetry, and storytelling complement any learner’s information reserve. Read Full Story

Hedgehog Effect: This term comes from an essay by Isaiah Berlin about a fox trying to attack a hedgehog. No matter how many strategies the fox tries, the hedgehog always avoids it by curling up in a perfect little ball of spikes. In business, the hedgehog represents successful companies; “they know one big thing and stick to it.” Successful businesses aim for doing what they’re passionate about, being the best in the world, and having an economic drive. Mediocre companies are compared to the fox; while they may have a lot of knowledge, they lack consistency. Read Full Story

A few years ago, I boarded a plane leaving London for my new job in Johannesburg, South Africa. As I tried to figure out how my body was supposed to fit in a seat that looked like it was tailored for a toddler, I made eye contact with a young man carrying a bag labeled with the name of the organization that employed me. Presuming we shared the same final destination, I greeted him from down the aisle with the most professional greeting my 18-year-old self could muster: I nodded my head upwards, flashed a good ol’ American “peace sign”, and gracefully articulated a heart-felt grunt. Read Full Story

“How was work today?” “Busy.” “How was your week?” “Busy.” “How is life?” “Busy.” Read Full Story

It’s a frigid day in Ukraine. Snowflakes flurry by, swirling around a man hobbling his way through the bleary scene. Not every day is so cold and bleak, but miserable weather or not, he must get to his job. All day, he is on his feet, climbing stairs and walking quite a distance to get to work. He winces, wobbling in place for a moment as his deteriorating prosthetic leg gives him a bit of a misstep. For this man, his subpar, breaking prosthetic is a critical part of his life. Notwithstanding his diligence, the daily rigors he faces are painful and exhausting. Read Full Story

“Eight hours for work! Eight hours for rest! Eight hours for what we will!” This was the cry of factory workers across the United States in the early 1900s. Grueling six-day workweeks approaching 100 hours a week exhausted blue-collar America until they finally achieved legal protection and the normalization of the two-day weekend we often take for granted today. Read Full Story

Traveling in uncharted waters can be treacherous and frightening. In Homer’s classic tale, The Odyssey, Odysseus undertakes a long and fearful journey. His realization of his new circumstance makes “[his] knees quake and the heart inside him ; he to his fighting spirit, desperate…’I see no way!’”[1] As he reaches land and safety, Odysseus flings himself on solid ground and kisses “the good green earth.”[2] These same feelings of fear and adulation while attempting to land safely on solid financial ground are often felt by business executives as they maneuver through situations no one has navigated before. Read Full Story

The question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” used to inspire so much excitement and dreaming; now it might make your palms sweaty and your heart rate soar. According to the latest Conference Board survey of U.S. job satisfaction, sixty-four per- cent of workers under the age of twenty-five say they are unhappy with their jobs. You’d like to avoid being part of that sixty-four percent. Now that you’re hitting your twenties, you’re staring into a daunting future with unlimited possibilities. But your options seem restrained, and you need one thing: good advice. A popular adage you’ve heard is this: follow your passion! Whenever I hear this, I feel sparks of enthusiasm bubbling up inside. The possibilities! However, soon after this elation I find myself back in the same position I was in before, with the same confusing questions, not sure what to do next. Read Full Story

If you were to analyze every breakthrough and innovation in the history of man, you would most likely find a question at the heart of each one. Read Full Story

Whitney Johnson broke the glass ceiling. “I want more. I can do this,” she said. A fire lit inside her—she disrupted herself. Read Full Story