Extractive summaries of and key takeaways from the articles curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision making | Week 242|April 29-May 5, 2022
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Shaping Section : Ideas and forces shaping economies and industries
Are emerging economies on the verge of another “lost decade”?
The Economist | April 30, 2022
Emerging economies hoping to grow their way into the ranks of the rich have faced a seemingly never-ending series of setbacks in recent years. Trade tensions, a pandemic, supply-chain snarls, inflation and war have together dealt them serious blows. Over the past three years more than half the population of the emerging world lived in countries where income growth, in purchasing-power-parity terms, lagged behind that in America—the first such episode since the 1980s.
The IMF forecasts that economic output across emerging markets will expand by 3.8% this year and 4.4% in 2023. Both figures have been revised down sharply since last year and fall short of the 5% average annual rate in the decade before covid-19. As the contours of the post-pandemic landscape start to come into focus, a lost decade for the world’s poorer countries—a period of slow growth, recurring financial crises and social unrest—looks increasingly plausible.
Headwinds for the emerging economies include rising public and private debt that may lead to indebtedness in the poorest countries and a further surge in food and energy costs due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Geopolitical tensions, national campaigns for self-sufficiency, and concerns about supply-chain reliability may weigh on trade, reducing poor economies’ opportunities to borrow technology and know-how from foreign firms, and sell to the rich world. The sharp and sustained slowdown in rich-world growth that began in the 1970s also weighed heavily on the global economy and the prospects for the emerging world.
Some emerging markets stand to benefit from an era of stagnation. Firms wary of dependence on China could move production to other low-cost places. Rich countries hoping to prevent poorer ones from drawing closer to Russia and China could lower trade barriers and increase investment abroad, boosting growth prospects in the process. High commodity prices, while they last, will buoy the fortunes of food, energy, and metals exporters.
Overall, however, the higher debts and forgone investment in human and physical capital of the past few years will take a heavy toll. The IMF forecasts that GDP across the emerging world will remain some 5% below its pre-pandemic trend at the end of 2024. Without bold initiatives to lower debt burdens, invest in public goods and expand trade, such mediocre performance might be just a taste of what is to come.
3 key takeaways from the article
- Emerging economies hoping to grow their way into the ranks of the rich have faced a seemingly never-ending series of setbacks in recent years. Trade tensions, a pandemic, supply-chain snarls, inflation and war have together dealt them serious blows.
- The IMF forecasts that economic output across emerging markets will expand by 3.8% this year and 4.4% in 2023. Both figures have been revised down sharply since last year and fall short of the 5% average annual rate in the decade before covid-19.
- As the contours of the post-pandemic landscape start to come into focus, a lost decade for the world’s poorer countries—a period of slow growth, recurring financial crises, and social unrest—looks increasingly plausible.
(Copyright)
Topics: Emerging Countries, Global Economy, Poor Countries
War Is Making One of the Richest Countries Even Richer
By Paul Wallace and Simone Foxman | Bloomberg Businessweek | April 29, 2022
As planes begin their descent into Doha, passengers can look down at the brand new 80,000-seat stadium rising from the desert that will host the final of the World Cup in December. They may also notice another striking image: tankers lined up in the Persian Gulf to collect super-chilled natural gas.
Football and an increasingly indispensable fuel may have little in common, yet they are coming together to give Qatar outsized influence on the global stage. As the World Cup showcases its ability to acquire international prestige, Qatar’s status as a much-coveted gas supplier is promising to turn the tiny peninsula into the bigger player it always aspired to be.
Soaring oil prices because of the war in Ukraine have boosted Middle East oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but the financial and geopolitical rewards on offer for Qatar make it the standout winner after Vladimir Putin’s invasion forced Europe to start weaning itself off Russian energy imports. Several of the European Union’s most senior officials have flown to Doha in recent weeks, all with a clear message: we need your gas as fast as possible. Germany has told businesses to start negotiating supply deals. The urgency became more acute this week after Russia cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
Qatar’s energy exports were already due to reach $100 billion this year for the first time since 2014 based on trends from the first quarter, according to Bloomberg calculations. That will allow it to spend even greater riches in global stock markets and on pursuing its foreign policy goals, mainly via its $450 billion sovereign wealth fund. Meanwhile, the Qatari government expects a $20 billion economic boost from staging the World Cup.
The question now is what Qatar will do with its LNG-fueled windfall. Its track record suggests not just a deeper dive into global stock markets, but also foreign-policy forays that haven’t always been in tune with its allies in the U.S. and Europe. Much of the money will be used to bolster Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, according to a person familiar with the matter. That would enable the Qatar Investment Authority, already a major investor in companies from Barclays Plc to Volkswagen AG, as well as New York and London real estate, to accelerate its push into technology stocks. Qatar could also use the fund to further its regional goals. Last month, the government pledged $5 billion of investments in Egypt.
3 key takeaways from the article
- Football and an increasingly indispensable fuel may have little in common, yet they are coming together to give Qatar outsized influence on the global stage.
- As the World Cup showcases its ability to acquire international prestige, Qatar’s status as a much-coveted gas supplier is promising to turn the tiny peninsula into the bigger player it always aspired to be.
- Soaring oil prices because of the war in Ukraine have boosted Middle East oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but the financial and geopolitical rewards on offer for Qatar make it the standout winner after Vladimir Putin’s invasion forced Europe to start weaning itself off Russian energy imports.
(Copyright)
Topics: Global Energy Market, Qatar, Russia, Ukraine
Leading & Managing Section
Designing Work That People Love
By Marcus Buckingham | Harvard Business Review Magazine | May–June 2022
To attract and retain the best people, we must redesign jobs around a simple but powerful concept: love for the content of the work itself. That word may seem strong in this context, but people’s affinity for their work can and should reach this level, and when it does, amazing things can happen. Most forward-thinking companies are beginning to implement each of these in turn. Creating a place where all people can find love in their work means incorporating three principles in everything your business does:
- The People Are the Point. A true Love + Work organization is built on a recognition of and commitment to the fundamental importance of each person who comes to work. A Love + Work organization sees employees as the integrating point for all other stakeholders rather than as merely one of many. They are, after all, where the work actually happens—where the value in products or for customers is created. That requires that every employee be seen as a full human being, not just a cog in the machine. Specifically, Love + Work organizations do the following: recruit human beings, not workers; commit to lifelong learning; and support alumni.
- One Size Fits One. Brain science reveals that there are more synaptic connections in each human brain than there are stars in 5,000 Milky Ways, resulting in endless variations in how we all think and feel. It shouldn’t be surprising, therefore, that people in the same job love and do their work very differently. An organization dedicated to love builds its people practices around that fact. To help people pinpoint their particular pattern of loves and loathings and channel them into contribution an organization must empower teams and team leaders to make the most of each employee’s uniqueness. For this, the organizations should avoid tools that standardize the work and organize around teams.
- In Trust We Grow. The data supports a strong link between trust and all the good outcomes that love at work produces. That’s because trust drives the ability of employees to discover and do what they love. In a study of housekeepers at Disney World, the author found that many loved their job specifically because they could be creative about how to do it. To deliberately engender trust in your organization, you’ll need to end certain rituals and start others. Especially you need to discard rituals that erode trust and pay individualized attention to each member in a team by the team leader if possible.
3 key takeaways from the article
- To attract and retain the best people, we must redesign jobs around a simple but powerful concept: love for the content of the work itself.
- That word may seem strong in this context, but people’s affinity for their work can and should reach this level, and when it does, amazing things can happen.
- Creating a place where all people can find love in their work means incorporating three principles in everything your business does: The people are the point, each of those employees is a unique person with distinct loves, interests, and skills; and for employees to discover and contribute their loves at work, leaders must explicitly make trust the foundation of all practices and policies.
(Copyright)
Topics: Love, Organizational Behavior, Team Performance
Effective Leaders Decide About Deciding
By Nancy Duarte | MIT Sloan Management Review | April 27, 2022
Every leader should design and communicate how they want to make decisions. Making it clear what you care about, what you need to know about, and what you’re tasking others to move on will help minimize confusion about who should be making which decisions. It also helps clarify when you as the leader can be kept out of a decision, when you should be pulled in, and how requests for your feedback should be communicated.
According to the author, who is CEO of Duarte Inc., they are fans of models and visual representations of processes hence after talking through the problem and the confusion, the executive team cocreated a new model. In a two-by-two matrix, decisions are categorized into four boxes along axes representing how urgent the decision is and how high or low the stakes are. Each box has a correlating expectation about whether I (as a leader) should be involved, ranging from “Decide without me” and “Inform on progress” to “Propose for approval” and “Escalate immediately.” Here are the kinds of decisions the author chooses to put into each category.
- Decide without me: Your direct reports should have most of their responsibilities piled under this item. This would include successfully executing the agreed-to strategy, fulfilling the duties of their role, hiring, spending, solving personnel issues, and managing the departments through their dashboard. A leader’s job is to help establish missions, not to micromanage how each person gets there.
- Inform on progress: A leader may want to “watch” some matters as they unfold. These include initiatives that have risk, general budget creep, or employee issues that might escalate.
- Propose for approval: Things that come up during the year that fall outside of our planned strategy or approved funding belong in this category.
- Escalate immediately: This category mostly evolves around high-risk or high-reward areas. These include scenarios where there are major risks to the strategic plan, changes in governance, shifts in the market, threats to data security or physical security, or even an unexpected acquisition opportunity.
2 key takeaways from the article
- Every leader should design and communicate how they want to make decisions. Making it clear what you care about, what you need to know about, and what you’re tasking others to move on will help minimize confusion about who should be making which decisions. It also helps clarify when you as the leader can be kept out of a decision, when you should be pulled in, and how requests for your feedback should be communicated.
- In a suggested two-by-two matrix, decisions are categorized into four boxes along axes representing how urgent the decision is and how high or low the stakes are. Each box has a correlating expectation about whether I (as a leader) should be involved, ranging from “Decide without me” and “Inform on progress” to “Propose for approval” and “Escalate immediately.”
(Copyright)
Topics: Decision-making, Leadership
Presentation Tips For Joe Biden From Peggy Noonan
By Jerry Weissman | Forbes Magazine | May 3, 2022
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and a lecturer at Yale University and New York University, decided to exercise her rhetorical credentials with a critique of Joe Biden’s presentation skills. Based on this she called out five factors about the president’s presentation that readily pivot to lessons for any presenter.
Teleprompter. From time to time, depart from the main points of the narrative by adding or condensing content. You can do this by reading the reactions of your audience and adjusting your narrative as needed. And write bulleted notes and use them as prompts on the comfort monitors. Your narrative will become more conversational and add more vocal dynamics.
Enacting emotion. Never try to perform. Instead, be conversational and treat every presentation as a series of one-to-one conversations. To achieve this, as you present, address each person in your audience—whether virtual or in person—by looking at them and reading their reaction to your words. If they appear to be understanding, move on to another person; if they appear quizzical, adjust your content slightly. To strengthen the connection, from time to time, state the name of the person as you address them.
Reference the past. Although William Shakespeare had one of his characters in The Tempest say that “past is prologue,” business stories should focus on the future and growth potential.
Self-referential. Many presenters are self-referential in a related way: they spend most of their presentation talking about themselves, their company, and their products or services rather than what any of it means to the audience. Make it all about them, not you. Sell the benefits not the features.
Faux-eloquence. During a speech that Biden gave to a joint session of Congress, he said “America is on the move again, turning peril into possibility, crisis into opportunity, set back into strength.” This is a rhetorical technique known as alliteration, a figure of emphasis that occurs by the repetition of certain words across successive sentences, clauses, or phrases. Alliteration is useful for young politicians trying to sound eloquent and make an impression. But for seasoned politicians and business leaders alliteration appears to be a stretch. Instead, be conversational. In Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, they urge: “Do not overwrite…Do not overstate…Do not use fancy words.”
2 key takeaways from the article
- Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and a lecturer at Yale University and New York University, decided to exercise her rhetorical credentials with a critique of Joe Biden’s presentation skills.
- Her five pieces of advice are: from time to time, depart from the main points of the narrative by adding or condensing content. Never try to perform. Instead, be conversational and treat every presentation as a series of one-to-one conversations. Focus on the future and growth potential. Make your presentation all about the audience, not you. Sell the benefits not the features. And for seasoned politicians and business leaders alliteration appears to be a stretch.
(Copyright)
Topics: Leadership, Communication, Presentation Skills
Entrepreneurship
Social Media Marketing Is Costly and Far Less Effective Than It Once Was. Here’s What to Do
By Jordan Hickey | Inc Magazine | April 29, 2022
Once upon a time, social media platforms were like jet fuel for consumer brands: You could pour a reasonable amount of money into a hypertargeted ad campaign and watch your revenue skyrocket. That moment has passed.
The cost to acquire new customers on social media has risen dramatically: In the second quarter of 2021, the cost per thousand impressions on social platforms was up 41 percent compared with the same period the prior year. At the same time, new privacy laws and the launch of iOS14 in early 2021 (which clamped down on Facebook ad targeting) mean that it’s more challenging than ever to zero in on specific consumers. Not to mention these platforms may have reached a brand saturation point. It’s enough to make you wonder if you shouldn’t just skip social media marketing altogether. Three recommendations for alternative strategies for tapping your existing customers and attracting new ones are:
Lean in to email and direct mail. These methods of communication are cost-effective and can result in easy loyalty if done right. With emails, the key is to both draw customers in and to give them something that will bring them back. The right announcement can accomplish the former, and teasing a future product launch can do the latter. Make emails interactive by adding an element like a quiz to make the experience feel more personalized. Doing so also allows you to gather more insight on a customer’s preferences and behaviors. Start a dialogue with people about the next thing [you] can sell them.
Introduce a new product as a means of getting the attention of a new audience. A new and innovative product or one that’s limited edition can attract an audience your business might not have otherwise had access to–without spending any money on ads.
Strike a strategic partnership. The benefits of partnerships are two-fold: They can organically grow all parties’ audiences without significant spending on advertising; and they can underscore your brand values in a way you can’t do alone.
3 key takeaways from the article
- Once upon a time, social media platforms were like jet fuel for consumer brands. That moment has passed.
- The cost to acquire new customers on social media has risen dramatically. At the same time, new privacy laws and the launch of iOS14 in early 2021. Not to mention these platforms may have reached a brand saturation point.
- It’s enough to make you wonder if you shouldn’t just skip social media marketing altogether. Three recommendations for alternative strategies for tapping your existing customers and attracting new ones are: lean in to email and direct mail, introduce a new product as a means of getting the attention of a new audience, and strike a strategic partnership.
(Copyrights)
Topics: Marketing, Advertising, Social Media Marketing
A Negotiation Expert Shares Tactics from Elon Musk’s Twitter Deal Every Entrepreneur Should Know
By Andres Lares | Entrepreneur Magazine | May 3, 2022
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover bid has caused a stir the last several weeks. Musk and Twitter employed several tried-and-true negotiation tactics that every entrepreneur should consider when negotiating their next client deal.
- Best and final offer. Often this phrase is employed on a take-it-or-leave-it basis and to push along the deal. One thing to remember, though: You can’t take back the offer.
- The “poison pill” defense. In an attempt to ward off Musk’s takeover, Twitter launched a “poison pill,” which is a rights plan that allows shareholders to purchase shares at a discount if any shareholder exceeds 15% ownership. This would ultimately dilute Musk’s stake. The poison pill defense is a maneuver that makes a company less attractive or desirable to a potential acquirer. Although it is very effective in dissauding an acquirer, this is often just the beginning of a defense strategy. Poison pills will not necessarily prevent the acquisition of the corporation if the acquirer is persistent — and we all know persistence is a big factor in persuasion. Additionally, the tactic can also weaken the company if employed incorrectly.
- Reconsidering your position. In April, Twitter invited Musk to join the board which he rejected. Without a board seat, Musk no longer had to act in the best interest of Twitter shareholders. There was likely some gamesmanship played during this time. Why even talk about a board seat when he had the clear intention of buying the whole company? Reconsidering a position is part of negotiation. The best negotiators write down their highest goals while dynamically reviewing new information as it comes in and then adjusting their position and strategy accordingly. The key is to be prepared prior to getting into the heat of the negotiation so that any adjustments you make to your offers and strategies are a result of adjustments to new information rather than merely feeling more pressure to get a deal done, which we often refer to as deal fever.
- Leverage. On April 21, Musk explored a tender offer for Twitter with $46.5 billion secured in funding. Negotiation discussions began on April 24 as Musk presented financial details. Discussing financials is a large part of the negotiation process and can take quite some time to reach a mutual agreement. One thing to keep in mind as an entrepreneur is that negotiating financials is considered a leverage tactic. Leverage is the advantage you acquire as the result of an act you commit and/or a position the other negotiator is in as the result of such action. Consider how you were able to obtain leverage (i.e. opposing negotiator communicating an untruthful statement), what you will do with your leverage, and how you will regain leverage if you lose it. Negotiations are a constant ebb and flow, so positional power can switch between negotiators. Always consider the other negotiator and what they bring to the table — what stimuli will influence him or her. Most importantly, communicate with confidence. When seeking leveraging power, a statement said with assuredness can be more believable than a truthful sentiment said with doubt.
2 key takeaways from the article
- Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover bid has caused a stir the last several weeks. Musk and Twitter employed several tried-and-true negotiation tactics that every entrepreneur should consider when negotiating their next client deal.
- Few of the tips are: if you claimed an offer as best and final offer you can’t take back the offer. Poison pill i.e., a rights plan that allows shareholders to purchase shares at a discount if any shareholder exceeds 15% ownership is a maneuver that makes a company less attractive or desirable to a potential acquirer. Adjust your offers and strategies as a result of new information rather than merely feeling more pressure to get a deal done, which is often refered to as deal fever. And communicate with confidence. When seeking leveraging power, a statement said with assuredness can be more believable than a truthful sentiment said with doubt.
(Copyright)
Topics: Entrepreneurship, Personal Development, Negotiation Skills
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