The billion dollar question: What happened to Detroit? When the U.S. city declared a record-breaking $18 billion bankruptcy in July, Americans looked on in awe. Now municipal workers are left wondering how to survive without a pension and an emergency manager is taking over mayoral duties. But Detroit’s demise didn’t happen overnight.
In my previous blog, I put Detroit’s financial condition — or lack thereof — under the microscope. The truth is, Detroit’s story is not unique. Pittsburgh, for example, was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2004. Heavily in debt, the city borrowed $870 million, twice its annual budget at the time. The city teetered on the abyss but didn’t fall in. What happened?
Pittsburgh’s demographics parallel Detroit’s in many ways:
In an earlier post, I wrote about unintended consequences that emerged from a bank’s well-meaning efforts to provide micro-loans to help people succeed in starting small businesses. “Outsider-ness” is a problem on many levels — and often right from the start.
Wish your employer would treat you like a rock star? Chances are you're being treated more like a worker bee. And that's not good.
Instead of nurturing talents and giving employees the resources to “transfer more pollen” in the corporate landscape, many managers are sacrificing development in the name of efficiency. And like bees, they're producing less and less as a result.
Data analysts are in the driver’s seat, as demand for workers is spinning out of control and the stream of qualified applicants can’t keep up. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, by 2018 the demand for deep analytical talent in the U.S could be 50 to 60 percent greater than its projected supply.
The launch of the Affordable Care Act website is making headlines, but not in the way that Washington had in mind. Technical glitches are proving serious and costly, and we’re left wondering how Amazon and eBay can build sites that work but the U.S. government cannot. The truth is, a different list of concerns is a virtual certainty if user experience (UX) is not taken into account. Up to now there hasn’t been much discussion about that.
It comes down to the way you think. Job hunters, including millennials, need to understand that a technical mastery of the finer points in your chosen business field is not enough. Skill matched with a particular quality of mind equals talent, according to successful business executives who have graduated from Bentley.
Mitch Roschelle, co-founder of the real estate advisory practice of the American unit of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, said he seeks three key mental attributes when recruiting talent: agility, empathy, and passion.
Recently there’s been a trend to stereotype millennials as ungracious, narcissistic, social media–obsessed, lazy, self-entitled “trophy children” who are handed everything in life.
As a Bentley University senior and proud millennial, I find these insults degrading and unwarranted. Comparing the values of one generation against another is flawed and rife with inaccuracies.
Let this be a guide to respond to anyone who dismisses our generation.
It’s not unusual to run into a business leader who’s keen on history, watches the History Channel and Ken Burns documentaries, and reads biographies by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
But is there a reason beyond personal interest to consider the past? Should business students study history in college?
As a history professor, I have a vested interest in saying “yes.” But I also have reasons. Here are two: