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Leadership Lessons from the Baseball Diamond
Looking back on my first season as Head Coach of my kids’ T-Ball team, I now realize that while teaching the game of baseball to a group of eleven five-year-olds may seem far removed from corporate America, there are numerous effective leadership parallels between the two.
PermalinkBack to Basics
For most business owners, investors and consumers, tossing the 2008 calendar into the trash was a very enjoyable task. After watching virtually every major economic indicator spiral downward last year, many individuals are looking to 2009 with careful optimism. Our economy is far from being out of the woods – and perhaps the much storied “turnaround” will not officially begin until 2010 – but there’s something refreshing about heading into a new year with sleeves rolled-up and ready to tackle these challenges head-on.
For those in Human Resource roles, 2009 will in many ways be a “back to basics” year, with a renewed focus on the areas of compensation and health & welfare benefits. With companies across all market sectors tightening the belt, every bit of cost reduction can make a difference. As a result, HR execs and their teams are being asked to do what on the surface may seem impossible: contribute to corporate cost reduction strategies in a meaningful and demonstrable way while simultaneously maintaining employee morale and motivating the workforce.
Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index shows major drop in funded status in November
In November, the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index (“the Index”) declined 8% or $95 billion in funded status. The $30 billion loss reduces the value of assets in the Index from $986 billion to $956 billion during the month of November.
The November decline follows on the heels of a sizeable $120 billion asset loss in October. However, the November asset loss was coupled with a decrease in interest rates. Decreasing interest rates increased liabilities by $65 billion. As a result, many companies may face serious funding shortfalls.
How serious?
Do Top Performers Make the Best Managers?
We’ve all seen it before. A managerial position becomes available and is filled by a top performer with minimal or no previous management experience. It makes sense. After all, shouldn’t an individual top performer be able to easily make the transition to manager? Shouldn’t a person who performs at the highest level be able to guide others to reach that same level of productivity? The answer is a 100%, absolute maybe.
"One-Stop-Shopping" versus "Best-of-Breed"
Until quite recently, employers often had to make some difficult choices when seeking a single source for all of their benefits administration needs. There were essentially three imperfect options:
