• EXECS FOR START-UP AND EXPANDING BUSINESS OFTEN “LOSE SIGHT OF THE BIG PICTURE when setting business strategies and targets, due to overly optimistic views about projects and performance… and end up with a ‘hockey stick’ projection that performance will sail forward, failing to reflect the impacts of (1) market realities such as changes in end-markets, competitors, prices and other external variables… or (2) core questions like ‘why’ they can grow faster than market, or whether managers’ biases toward overconfidence & overoptimism have been reality-tempered… A strategic planning process that systematically incorporates the ‘outside view’ in near and long-term planning can drive executives out of their echo chamber.” DCG have decades of expertise in reality-based strategic planning. Call us before your reality check bounces. [McKINSEY & COMPANY – Apr 18]
  • OVER ONE-HALF OF AMERICAN EMPLOYEES ARE SEARCHING FOR NEW JOBS THIS YEAR and, according to numerous surveys, the priority for over a third of is about getting (1) Health insurance benefits, and (2) “appreciation for their work” – probably correlated to why most job searches on the internet and job-sites peak on Mondays before 11:am. Meanwhile, employers are instead focusing more on utilizing artificial intelligence to assess “soft skills.” Notwithstanding the number of workers still unemployed (and no longer part of the statistical labor-rate count), it appears that “with workers getting scarce, the fight for talent will dominate 2018.” [CFO MAGAZINE – Apr/May 18]
  • “SYSTEMATIC BIASES ARE HARD TO OVERCOME BECAUSE THEY ARE HUMAN IN NATURE,” but they predominantly impact personal financial decision-making. (1) Present Bias is the tendency to “value the present too much when planning for the future,” opting for current personal gratification (by spending or borrowing) over saving or investment; (2) Planner vs Doer Bias is the internal struggle which pits our ‘Planning Self’ (e,g. sensible longer-range budgeting) against our ‘Doing Self’ which opts for short-term decisions. “Most of us realize we have self-control problems, but are naïve about our level of sophistication and underestimate their severity”; (3) Status Quo Bias causes the inertia resulting from people who “when given the option, are likely to stick” with existing circumstances to avoid hassle and stress of change; and (4) Loss Aversion Bias is the nature to avoid “experiencing negative feeling of loss, which is twice as strong as feeling a positive experience of gain,” and prompts many to psychologically ‘anchor’ their purchase price as a reference point – irrespective of current economic value – and thus “take on big risks to recoup ‘losses’ even at risk of bigger losses.” [QUARTZ MEDIA – May 1, 18]
  • GENERATION Z KIDS ARE NOW ENTERING THE WORKFORCE and are projected to represent 1/3 of the U.S. population and become one in every five workers with the next few years. Also known as the Apps Generation, iGeneration, Plurals, and Post-Millennials, their perspectives on life and work have been shaped dramatically less through interpersonal interactions than by parenting trends and the pervasive use of technology and social-media. Major influences guiding their development include the overwhelming impact of video gaming, along with legalization of gambling, recreational drugs, and polarized ‘minority-rights’ issues. But the most significant factor is that Gen Z kids haven’t known a world without the internet or a smartphone — having grown up in a highly-connected world with devices which process information quickly and provide answers which are accepted as gospel. They have shorter attention spans but have developed skills at ‘multitasking’ while rapidly sorting through data irrespective of multiple distractions. Developing company policies to recruit, motivate and retain this new breed of employee has now become a critical factor in management. DCG can help.
  • SOME 53,000 SIGNIFICANT CYBERCRIME BREACHES WERE REPORTED LAST YEAR. Data collected from 67 global monitoring organizations show nearly 1,400 breaches of which ‘Organized Crime’ was responsible for more than half, predominantly via stolen credentials through point-of-sale and payment-card-skimmers. [BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK – Apr 30, 18]

          The level of education in America’s public schools continues to disintegrate. Nationwide, only one-third of eighth-graders are proficient in either reading or mathematics, according to U.S. Dep’t of Education testing results for 2017, and among 27 ‘large urban districts’ (including Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore and Fresno), the percentage ranges from 5% to 11%.  Astonishing…

        “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.”  – Ronald Reagan