If you can't pivot, tack     When discussing the difficulties of running a business during the COVID-19 crisis, many have urged us to "pivot". Pivoting, in the sense that you need to alter what you do, or change the direction your company is taking. In a recent Facebook posting, the idea of business pivoting was taken to task, and an alternative was suggested.   The word “pivot” can be used as either a noun or a verb. When used as a noun, pivot is defined as “the central point, pin, or shaft on which a mechanism turns or oscillates”. When used as a verb, it...

What You Don't Say Is Important Too!   Strength is admired and sought after. Everyone wants to look strong and confident. This is true in personal relationships as well as in business. The words you use with your employees and your coworkers need to be convincing and devoid of ambiguity.   Judith Humphrey, writing in Fast Company, makes the case for losing your dependence on certain verbs that can all too easily creep into our lexicon. These words are common, but also lazy. Don’t forget that one of the important uses of verbs is to convey “action”.  In business, you’ll want to be seen...

The Black-White Wage Gap     Attribution: Current Population Survey - photo from Daily Kox, 1/28/17     David Leonhardt, writing in the June 25, 2020 NYT   One remarkable sign of the racial inequities plaguing the United States: The wage gap between black and white men is as large today as it was in 1950.   If you look at the government’s official wage statistics, you’ll see a somewhat different story. Those number show that the wage gap is smaller than in the mid-20th century.   But the official statistics are misleading. They exclude people who are not working — and there has been a sharp rise since the 1980s in...

The 10 Commitments Companies Must Make to Advance Racial Justice     Jorg Greuel/Getty Images     Mark R. Kramer, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, and a cofounder and managing director of FSG, a global social impact consulting firm, recently penned an article for the Harvard Business Review (June 4, 2020). In it, he outlines 10 commitments companies must make to advance racial justice.   In the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, many major corporations are tweeting out statements of concern and support for the Black community. That’s a start, but what is needed at this moment is action. We cannot pretend that most major...

H7877 will have a demonstratively chilling event on the Rhode Island staffing industry and Rhode Island businesses   Rhode Island sides with fourth-century emperor Constantine.   Constantine, ancient Rome’s first Christian emperor, issued an edict (AD 321) that all citizens must rest on Sunday. Over the next 1700 years (or so), restrictions regarding working on Sundays continued in a fairly haphazard manner. These “Sunday Laws”, often referred to as “blue laws”, were carried to the new world by Puritan colonies. The first mention of them is in Samuel Peter’s 1781 book “General History of Connecticut”.   Sunday Laws, or Blue Laws aside, in a modern, world-wide economy,...