Polly LaBarre writes in the Harvard Business Review Blog about a leadership development program that brings about organization change by transforming "the hearts and minds of people" rather than "changing systems and processes."

This program, from biotech firm Genentech, utilizes four principles
1. Utilizing a long-term process rather than a short-term event.
2. Focusing on mind, body, and spirit rather than only learning new concepts.
3. Using mindfulness techniques but calling them something else, to avoid sounding religious.
4. Forming small communities of 6-8 to collectively experience this process.

You can read more in the HBR Blog or in the Management Innovation eXchange Blog.

The New York Times Magazine ran a story today about the Obama's administration's experiment with "industrial policy," encouraging certain industries with start-up funds to increase their initial viability.  Compared with other countries, particularly China and Japan, the U.S. has largely avoided such policies in recent decades.  The U.S. government funds billions of dollars of scientific research each year.  However, it fails to provide funding to transform that promising research into viable industries that will create jobs. 

Internet companies like Facebook and Google are remarkably successful financially, but create few jobs (2000 at Facebook, about 25,000 at Google).  On the other hand, manufacturing companies that are less successful financially create tens of thousands of jobs (General Motors still employs over 200,000). 

The vast majority of people in the U.S. aren't going to live as well as past generations unless we rebuild a technology-based manufacturing infrastructure.  But, we can do this.  Taxpayers are already subsidizing some of the best technology research in the world.  But, we have to take the next step and provide funding for emerging industries to translate that research and build their factories here.

Some individuals experience incivility at work based on others’ perceptions of whether they are different from the norm.  Incivility, the often-unintentional violation of social norms, can occur as a result of perpetrators’ unconscious prejudice.  Such activity can result in decreased employee satisfaction, increased likelihood of looking for another job, and decreased mental and physical health.

Employers can take these threats seriously by considering how to integrate diversity initiatives and incivility initiatives.  Common diversity interventions might unintentionally lead to increased acts of incivility due to the likelihood of suppressing true feelings.  Additionally, programs that encourage diversity awareness development and continuous introspection have been criticized for not leading to meaningful action.

My article on this topic was recently published in Advances in Developing Human Resources. It culminates in addressing how diversity initiatives might be reimagined using an incivility framework that seeks to utilize an action orientation.  The pre-edited version is available here on my website by clicking here.

Community colleges in the United States have become major providers of human resource development services, particularly through offering workforce development training to local employers.  The addition of workforce development services to community colleges is a fairly recent phenomenon. 

Some see workforce development efforts as diluting community colleges’ historic mission of providing affordable and accessible opportunities for students to transfer to four-year institutions.  The addition of online training has created additional stressors, due to increases in costs, opportunities for outsourcing, and increased opportunity for serving those outside of the local community.

Dr. Rajashi Ghosh (Drexel University) and I wrote an article that uses organization theory to address the competing emphases in the community college mission.  We attempt to understand how various types of institutions overcome internal and external barriers in introducing online workforce development through organizational change initiatives.

The article was recently published in Human Resource Development Review. The pre-edited version is available here on my website by clicking here.

I just read this article in the New York Times, which describes the design of products that are friendly for older adults, but also appealing to younger consumers.  The article mentions that products such as exaggerated large button phones aren't appealing to many older adults or younger people.  It's nice to see that business needs are driving product developers to design products that are friendly to this population.  Especially interesting is a body suit, used by marketers and product designers, that helps simulate some of the physical problems experienced by older adults. 

I wonder what the implications of these issues are for designing workplaces that are friendly for older adults.  In terms of this article, ergonomic office design comes to mind a perk that appeals to older workers, younger workers, and long-term business interests.  But, many of the other things that many older workers want are also wanted by many younger workers (e.g., flexibility, reduced hours, respect).

A deep concern of mine is the lack of non-service jobs in the U.S. I've spent a good deal of time in the last year considering the role of postsecondary workforce development providers in helping to train a workforce for manufacturing jobs.

The CEO of Dow Chemical has written a new book called "Make it in America: The Case for Re-Inventing the Economy."  I haven't read the book, but I found his interview on NPR's Morning Edition to be very interesting.  Basically, he says the U.S. lacks national-level policies and approaches to encourage domestic manufacturing, which China and Germany have used successfully to build thriving manufacturing sectors.

I've moved my website over to Google Sites.  It's much easier for me to edit it this way and I now have a blog on here!