• DISASTER OR CRISIS IS SELDOM ON THE STRATEGIC PLANNING AGENDA, but how prepared a business (or family) really needs to be is arguable only by those who haven’t experienced it. Taking the time to assess & define business risk requires a hard look at vulnerabilities by conducting an honest assessment of company personnel, internal weaknesses, potential for disaster, etc.– one of those important but not urgent areas which are easy to ignore. But, if/when crisis does occur, Contingency Planning often means the difference between survival or sinking. It’s customary to focus on ‘big’ disasters like flood, earthquake, shootings, but it’s usually the less visible crises that take the biggest toll on business continuity. Death of a key employee, loss of critical data (especially from cybercrime breach), or being locked out of your workplace (far likelier than you might imagine) can literally bring operations to a halt. DCG has decades of experience in guiding people through this process, including comprehensive discussion & checklists on our website at http://www.duitchconsulting.com/disaster-and-contingency-planning-a-practical-approach/. Call for a courtesy analysis of your exposure and cost-efficient protective remedies.
  • MILLENNIAL MANAGEMENT UPDATE: THE Y (aka WHY?) generation “search for diverse role models, meaning beyond paycheck, equitable treatment in an increasingly transparent & transient world, and leading edge skill building.” For most, embracing ‘big change’ programs is a struggle which they either tend to resist passively (often undermining management efforts) or “simply decide that transformation isn’t worth the risk and look for their next opportunity elsewhere… with job hopping becoming the ‘new normal’ – as millennials are now expected to hold 15 to 20 positions over the course of their working lives.” One helpful factor is “the increasingly advanced technological & digital landscape – particularly mobile connectivity and social media – that has opened up exciting new possibilities for influencing millennials, since digital advances can turbocharge efforts to foster understanding & conviction, thereby helping employees overcome their skepticism, feel more involved in change efforts, and thus better able to play a role in shaping them.”  [McKINSEY QUARTERLY – Apr 16]
  • OUR GOVERNMENT IN ACTION! A Federal judge has just unsealed some of the 11,000+ documents relating to financial machinations since 2008, which the Obama Administration has refused to release under “executive privilege, attorney-client, and deliberative-process doctrines, insisting that their release would negatively impact global financial markets… But Judge Sweeney said the government’s sole motivation was avoiding embarrassment… and that the court will not condone misuse of a protective order as a shield to insulate public officials from criticism.” The chief cover-up so far involves manipulation of the FannieMae/FreddyMac bailout provisions (around $187 million), subsequently seizing 100% of cash flow (versus payback + interest as others were handled) which “forcibly converted the entities into a highly lucrative, and highly irregular revenue source for the Federal government… It’s a pitched battle over the future of the American housing market, and the sealed papers likely contain a covert history of the war to date… (Ironically, one of the first memos written as President Obama contained language similar to the judge’s: The government should not keep info confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed or because of speculative or abstract fears.)” [ROLLING STONE – Apr 18, 16]
  • ANOTHER TANGENT: SINCE THE 2008 MELTDOWN, THE TOP 50 U.S. COMPANIES – after receiving over $11 trillion in federal bailouts, loans & loan guarantees – have allegedly stashed $1.4 trillion in offshore tax havens while paying only $1 trillion in taxes. According to global poverty charity Oxfam, General Electric received $28 billion in support from taxpayers while stashing nearly $120 billion in more than a hundred subsidiaries, and Apple has over $180 billion offshore in at least three tax-haven subsidiaries. [LBN eLERT – Apr 14, 16]
  •  WORD FOR THE SEASON — ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION:  the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for President put forth by either political party in the 2016 election year.  Are we past the point of no-return?  Is representative democracy now history?  A brilliant summary of how about the public servants have become our masters: https://www.youtube.com/embed/jeYscnFpEyA
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: “The main problem with goal setting is that most of us don’t have someone to hold us accountable if we slack off, making it easier to push goals to that mythical day when we’ll suddenly have more time (read: never).”

                          Exceptionally Creative Commercial:   https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Dxy4n0UT82o?rel=0  

 DCG: UTILIZING GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE FOR OPTIMAL STRATEGIC & FINANCIAL DIRECTION, MANAGEMENT, NEGOTIATION & MEDIATION