Productivity & Trade Briefs

As it finished up its historic term in June, the Supreme Court issued several rulings whose impact, many practicing employment lawyers say, will relieve organizations from the burden of rising workplace harassment and retaliation claims. I’m a contrarian here.

One of the dumbest corporate governance issues is whether to split the roles of Board Chair and CEO. That debate is now playing out on the front pages of business sections as shareholders will decide next week whether to take the chairman of the board title away from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

At her funeral ceremony tomorrow, we will remember Margaret Thatcher as much for her leadership style as for her polarizing politics — in fact, the two are almost identical.

WordPress.com is the 15th most trafficked website in the world. It is run by Automattic Inc, a company that is 100% distributed. That means everyone works from home, or more precisely, from wherever in the world they wish.

There are two foundational concepts that underscore the financial nature of human capital: human capital is one of only two forms of business capital; and, the financial resources spent on human capital are an investment, not an expense.

Who do Yahoo's "work@home" telecommuting champions think they're kidding? Marissa Mayer is no fool. She didn't take over as Yahoo's CEO because the company was doing well; she came on board because the stumbling Internet enterprise was an underperforming underachiever that had lost its way.

For a Christmas gift, I was given a book of English proverbs and sayings. When I read it, I was struck by how many of the sayings found in the book related to the work I do. I soon realized that most of this wisdom originally came from my grandmother.