Considering Layoffs? Read This Stanford Professor's Explanation of Why Layoffs Are Almost Always a Bad Idea First

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Considering Layoffs? Read This Stanford Professor's Explanation of Why Layoffs Are Almost Always a Bad Idea First Stanford's Jeffrey Pfeffer runs through all the research showing layoffs are usually a very dumb move. Continued here

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Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older “The perilous time for the most highly gifted is not youth,” the visionary Elizabeth Peabody, who coined the term transcendentalism, wrote in her timeless admonition against the trap of complacency. “The perilous season is middle age, when a false wisdom tempts them to doubt the divine origin of the dreams of their youth.” A century and a half after her, contemplating how to keep life from becoming a parody of itself, Simone de Beauvoir observed: “In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves.” Moving through the stages of life and meeting each on its own terms is the supreme art of living — the ultimate test of self-respect and self-love. Often, what most blunts our vitality is the tendency for the momentum of a past stage to steer the present one, even though our priorities and passions have changed beyond recognition. Continued here

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Get Better Results By Not Being Attached to Getting Them Solving the ultimate leadership paradox. Continued here

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3 Lessons From Beyonce to Grow Your Business Don't deviate from what made your business great, improve upon it. Continued here

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Mark Zuckerberg Just Admitted One of His Biggest Mistakes. It Comes 20 Years Too Late Behind the layoffs, Meta just gave entrepreneurs a valuable lesson in what not to do when scaling a business. Continued here

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Job Candidates are "Cheating" with ChatGPT and It's Fabulous Why not use every tool available? Continued here

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Tesla Just Made Its Most Popular Vehicle More Expensive and It's a Stroke of Genius The IRS reclassified the Model Y, making it eligible for the $7,500 tax credit. Continued here

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Hidden Tax Benefits and Pitfalls SMBs Should Know This Filing Season The Inflation Reduction Act has created opportunities--and some risks. Here's how to manage both. Continued here

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How Did LeBron James Break That, in part, comes with the realization that success is always a lagging indicator. Continued here

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ESG is Going to Have a Rocky 2023. Sustainability Will Be Just Fine. | Andrew Winston Before diving into why, let’s define terms. ESG is not sustainability. ESG — the acronym stands for environmental, social, and governance — has been mostly focused on screening companies as investments, largely by understanding how a business is affected by environmental and social issues (with an additional focus on whether a company has good governance in place to manage those risks and pressures). Sustainability is a much broader idea, focusing on a company’s role in society, how it creates value by managing its environmental and social impacts (both positive and negative), and how its actions affect a wide range of stakeholders. On the ESG front, there are two different forms of backlash going on. First is the political theater, mostly in the U.S., of the “anti-woke” movement. Some right-wing governors and attorneys general are unhappy with investors that have, for example, set goals to get to zero carbon emissions in their portfolios. They say the investors are progressives and “politically motivated, anti-free market, anti-family.” With much fanfare, some U.S. states are pulling funds from high-profile investors like BlackRock (although the billions withdrawn are not likely to seriously worry companies with trillions under management). The absurdity of calling investors and ESG “woke” is a longer discussion, but I’ll quote BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, on the subject: “Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics. It is not a social or ideological agenda. It is not ‘woke.’ It is capitalism, driven by mutually beneficial relationships between you and the employees, customers, suppliers, and communities your company relies on to prosper.” Unfortunately for Fink, he’s getting pressure from all sides now — some people say he’s greenwashing — but he’s not wrong on this fundamental point: Pleasing stakeholders and serving the common interest, including the planet’s, is how to create value today. It’s better business. Continued here

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Facilitating the Next Golden Age of Black Business In recent years, a growing recognition of deep inequities in the global economy has served as a much needed push for financial institutions, philanthropic organizations, governments, and corporations to invest in Black business. Take the example of the PNC Foundation, the philanthropic arm of PNC Financial Services, which in October 2021 donated $16.8 million to launch the Howard University and PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship. Howard University, a historically Black research university, will also work alongside other historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), such as Morgan State University, Clark Atlanta University, and Texas Southern University, to give the center a national footprint. Likewise, in November 2022, Robert F. Smith, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, launched a program alongside investment companies Stackwell and Prudential that will provide 500 students from HBCUs and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) with $1,000 grants to invest, along with hands-on investment education.1 Smith, an African American billionaire and the visionary behind the Student Freedom Initiative, sees the promise of a global economy where underrepresented groups are not left behind. The launch of the Stackwell and Prudential partnership, Smith said, “shows what the power of intentionality and collaboration can do to create long-term solutions to combat the racial wealth gap.” Continued here

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Clues hidden in The Last of Us credits Carrie Bradshaw in a tank top and tutu getting splashed by a passing bus. Tony Soprano cruising through New Jersey in his Chevy, cigar hanging from his mouth. Mad Men's faceless businessman falling from the sky, past skyscrapers and advertising billboards. A sprawling, mechanical map of Westoros. Great television shows stick in your memory, but so do their opening credits – and, right now, we're in a golden age for them. See the recent series of The White Lotus, featuring a 90-second-sequence of Italian frescoes packed with metaphors and clues for the series that became as much of a talking point as the show itself – and a theme song that has become an unlikely club anthem. Or Succession's montage of grainy Roy family home-video footage, accompanied by Nicholas Brittell's Emmy-winning score. Or the trippy CGI animation of dystopian workplace drama Severance, a standalone work of art of its own. Continued here

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Data bombing and dead cats - how PR uses practices of secrecy to influence media and society More than 100 years ago, sociologist Georg Simmel wrote that secrecy is a core part of all human relationships. The ratio of secrecy to openness in a society, he argued, can tell us much about that society. I explore this in my new book, examining how public relations secrecy techniques interact (and clash) with the transparency and openness of media. The public relations (PR) industry is made up of professionals in public affairs, lobbying and events management, among others. Their role is to manage a client’s relationship (and reputation) with the general public, investors and regulators. Media relations is the sub-field of PR that attempts to secure positive coverage and suppress negative issues in the media. This includes newspapers and television news, but also social media. Continued here

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Turkey-Syria earthquake: how disaster diplomacy can bring warring countries together to save lives The death toll of the massive earthquakes that have rocked the Turkey-Syria border region has now exceeded 5,000 people and the World Health Organization has suggested it could rise as high as 20,000. The catastrophe has led to an international outpouring of support. Numerous international rescue, medical, and other teams are arriving and on their way. But rescue attempts are ongoing and reports are continuing to emerge of people being found alive under the rubble, despite freezing temperatures at night and poor weather in many earthquake-affected areas. Continued here

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W.E.B. Du Bois, Black History Month and the importance of African American studies The opening days of Black History Month 2023 have coincided with controversy about the teaching and broader meaning of African American studies. On Feb. 1, 2023, the College Board released a revised curriculum for its newly developed Advanced Placement African American studies course. Continued here

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How do you make a universal flu vaccine? A microbiologist explains the challenges, and how mRNA could offer a promising solution To everything there is a season, and for the flu, it’s wintertime. Flu cases peak between December and February, and the flu vaccine is your best defense. Getting the vaccine means you will be less sick even if you get a breakthrough infection. However, your immune system is in a constant race against the flu virus. Like the virus that causes COVID-19, influenza rapidly changes and mutates into new variants, so manufacturers have to update the flu shot to try to keep pace. After identifying a new flu variant, it takes manufacturers about six months to update the vaccine – and in the meantime the virus can mutate again. This phenomenon is called antigenic drift, and can reduce the effectiveness of the flu vaccine for that season. Continued here

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Large numbers of Americans want a strong, rough, anti-democratic leader It’s true that many who participated in the insurrection are facing consequences, including prison time. Many candidates for state office who falsely claimed that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election lost their races. And the congressional committee investigating the insurrection voted to refer Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal charges. But more than 100 members of Congress who objected to the results of a free and fair election won their reelection campaigns. And at least seven people who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 have been elected to state legislatures and two have been elected to Congress. Continued here

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Memphis police numbers dropped by nearly a quarter in recent years - were staffing shortages a factor in the killing of Tyre Nichols? In the years running up to the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, the Memphis Police Department faced an increasingly dire staffing crisis. Indeed, shortages on the force have led to questions over whether, given their relative lack of experience, the five officers now charged with Nichols’ murder would have been assigned to the now-disbanded SCORPION unit – or even hired in the first place. Memphis isn’t alone in confronting the issue of dwindling officer numbers. In January 2023, the federal judge monitoring the Baltimore Police Department said a severe staffing shortage there is causing slow reform progress as the agency attempts to comply with a federal consent decree.