March 2009

Remember, the iPod came out five weeks into the post 9-11 economic downturn

7X in 18 months

"Where else can I invest and get that kind of return? There is no steel or equipment we can invest in to get that kind of return."

- Rick Willett, COO, NewPage Corp. on the
benefits of training in RapidChange tools and LeanSixSigma skills.
NewPage was named best place to work for LeanSixSigma practitioners and won best SixSigma launch from iSixSigma magazine.

We took the referees off the court

A college business dean and lifelong Libertarian reconsiders the rules of the game.

3 companies. 3 'corporate' death sentences.
None of them took it lying down.
All of them succeeded.
How?
They used their brain.
• One company had to overcome years of internal conflict.
• One company had to turn around decades of low expectations.
• And another had to deal with merging workforces and making a new product.

Guideposts for the new economy?

This month in the Business of Change a social media expert and a green energy expert give their "best shot" at what the economy will look like on the other end of this crisis.

100 million hours

The amount of time Americans will spend this
weekend simply watching or buzzing through commercials.
What can you do
to tap into your employees'
cognitive surplus?

Brain becomes a TV star - will it lie to us?

The science of telling a lie is more complicated than the Fox TV show suggests, but there are some key Reptilian brain lessons to learn.

"We get to re-discover our own strengths, we get to incorporate new ideas and methods into our business practices, we will be more competitive, and, oh.... because we should have been doing this all along anyway."

Chris Miller, Illuminomics

The Search for Optimism

"What I'm optimistic about - it isn't the institutions - it is the young woman from Laos who came to this country at 12 not speaking English who graduated at the top of her high school class and is majoring in industrial design ..."
Daniel Pink, author, Free Agent Nation

How can you offer your people
'Credible Hope'
so that when this ends, you're able to respond quickly?

NewPage COO Rick Willett offers practical tips.

Meet the faculty

Jeannine Hall has experience in diverse fields - from leadership assessment to addictions counseling. She sees leaders today under so much stress and believing that the answer has to be as complex as the problem. Maybe, she says, the answer is simple.