Dan Erwin

Blistering Job Growth....

...but not a fair day’s wage.

America's labor market really boomed in 2014. In fact there were 3 million more people in work than a year earlier. According to a recent study reported in The Economist, the ratio of job seekers to actual job openings fell "from a peak of seven to one in 2009 to two to one in November 2014." Why is this? Or, What caused this?

In a fascinating piece of research from the non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research, the failure of congress to....

Do We Really Need Government?

Milton Friedman once said that “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” The initial driver of this blog is a statement of similar ilk by a resident of my apartment who said that we don’t really need government--and we’d be better off without it. That’s what we’re hearing now from those of extreme Libertarian bent in Silicon Valley.

But in this blog I have three objectives that both include and go beyond those simplistic and stupid responses. I intend to suggest by historical data that government is one of our most precious human possessions. It’s the Chinese, today, who realize that government is what has made the West successful. Second, I want to show that the despairing and cynical belief that government is never going to change is utter nonsense. Finally, I want to point to the fact that the public and our politicians need to revisit the American experiment of government in today’s context, a task that few, thus far, are prepared to do.

A recent analysis on the state of the state by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, writing in Foreign Affairs, addresses one historical and intensely relevant question: What is the state for? ...

Is Everything Actually Negotiable?

The research finds that far more things are negotiable than most imagine. Indeed, even though the economy is picking up, I've found that haggling is still very, very possible. 

Indeed, my basic rule is that you can barter or haggle for just about anything. In today's world, where the notion of job security has become a farce, haggling provides another means for some setting aside some "f--k you money."

But it's still amazing how few are willing to haggle. A few months ago I was conversing with a woman whose kids had rented a home, they thought, in one of the top school districts. When they found they were on the wrong side of the street, they decided they'd have to take their lumps and stay there. Although I suggested otherwise, she wanted nothing to do with it, nor did she believe her kids would be willing to renegotiate or haggle to move across the street into the best school district.

Consumer naivete keeps most people from doing what sophisticated businesses do every day: "if you'll do this, I'll do that." Or, "I'm really interested in that TV set, but not at that price. I do, however, have some other products I'm looking at, so lets create some kind of a deal. Here's what I suggest."

A few years ago, Negotiation, the monthly newsletter put out by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, did a fascinating series on the science and art of haggling...

9 "Rules" for Successful Job Search

Recently I was engaged by a senior exec who had worked in a narrow, consumer products industry for years. He’d lost his job because of a buy-out and strategy change. Significantly unaware of the career implications of the changing economy, he also had no awareness of either job search realities or skills. I doubt that is unusual. It means coaching  and development of job search competencies from ground zero are required.

What follows, then, are those ground zero “rules” for job search in the 21^st century. They reflect my observations and the wisdom of highly successful managers and executives who’ve worked in everything from start-ups to leading multi-national companies. These are people who’ve moved from corporation to corporation over the past 15 years with little pain. They reflect a highly knowledgeable understanding of the flattened and networked impact of the information economy upon jobs. The degree of consensus on these “rules” for managerial positions and above is near 100%.

A caveat: If you’re in your first five years of your career after graduation, two or three of the rules will be a bit difficult to ...

Let’s Get Real About Wasteful Public Welfare Programs

By now all of us know that Mitt Romney is responsible for emphasizing the 1% and the “takers.” Of course, Romney wasn’t the only one. Bill O’Reilly, in one of his tirades, emphasized that the real problem with America are the welfare queens and the food stamp junkies. In the debate about poverty and the 1%, no one deals with the problem more uniquely than Nick Kristof. He reminds us that critics have argued that “government assistance saps initiative and is unaffordable.” After researching the issue, Kristof concedes that “the critics have a point” and finds “five public welfare programs that are wasteful and turning us into a nation of ‘takers.’”

1. Welfare subsidies for private planes. The United States offers three kinds of subsidies to tycoons with private jets: accelerated tax write-offs, avoidance of personal taxes on the benefit by claiming that private aircraft are for security, and use of air traffic control paid for by chumps flying commercial.

As the leftists in the George W. Bush administration put it when they tried unsuccessfully to end this last boondoggle: “The family of four taking a budget vacation is subsidizing the C.E.O.’s flying on a corporate jet.”

Is the All-or-Nothing Marriage Like the All-or-Nothing Job?

Since the middle of last month, I’ve been nearly fixated on a pre-research article by Northwestern’s Eli Finkel on the All-or-Nothing Marriage. Although I’ve been out of the marriage counseling business for forty years, I found the ideas and conclusions fascinating—but both delighting and discomforting. While skimming through the article just this week, I began to see a recurring pattern and wondered whether it applied to situations other than marriage. My answer is a big YES. What’s true about marriage today is also true about jobs. And that, too, is both delighting and discomforting.

Finkel and his colleagues ask the question whether marriages today are better or worse than they used to be. As he indicates, the question is usually answered in one of two ways. The marital decline camp says that marriage has weakened. Higher divorce rates are indicative of a harmful lack of commitment and a decline of moral character.

That phrase “a decline of moral character” was an interesting reminder. It’s the same term that Charles Murray and William Bennett have used to sell the wrong-headed idea that the moral decline of many in the ...

Why Are Fewer Behaving Badly?

Leonard DiCaprio's Wolf of Wall Street is a bit late. Despite the economic rebound, research shows that behaving badly in business is down for the eighth year in a row. 

A report from The Ethics Resource Center (ERC), a 90-year-old non-profit, surveyed 6400 part-and full-time workers finding that 41% had observed misconduct in their offices last year. That's down from 45% in 2011 and from 55% at the highest point six years ago. The president of the ERC, Patricia Hamed, says that more companies are doing what they need to do.

The following is a summary of some of the relevant findings from 2013 contrasted with 2011 from the ERC's survey:

• Lying to employees, 17%, down from 20%.
• Violating company policies related to internet use, 12%, down from16%.
• Abusive behavior toward employees, 18%, down from 21%.
• Lying to customers, vendors, or the public, 10%, down from 12%.
• Abusing substances such as drugs or alcohol, 9%, down from 11%.
• Sexual harassment, 7%, down from 11%.
• Breaching customer or consumer privacy, 5%, down from 7%.
• Falsifying and/or manipulating financial reporting info, 3%, down from 5%.

Dr. Hamed indicated ...

Dan Erwin: 5 More for the Curious

GeoffreyJames. What strong emotions tell you at work. If you're not familiar with James as a writer and blogger, this is a great introduction. James knows how to draw strong, immensely practical and relevant conclusions without going off the reservation. Along with Linda Richardson, he also has some of the best stuff on sales. In this brief, substantial article, he gives definition to our emotions. But significantly his take advises you on the weakness driving the emotion and what a manager should do about it. Fascinating stuff! 

Nelson Schwartz: The middle class is steadily eroding. Just ask the business world. This article summarizing the awareness of businesses, especially restaurants, that with the demise of the middle class their business is at risk, is the first shot across the bow. Sociologists have known for decades that the upper class is ultimately built upon the middle class. And that without a solid middle class, the opportunities for enrichment will eventually dry up. Schwartz' reporting gives indication of that issue by comparing the changes, sometimes massive, in business. It's not just restaurants. Retailers like Penney's and Sears, the middle-class giants. . .

Robert Reich on David Brooks' Utter Ignorance About Inequality

In my last blog, I wrote about David Brooks' article on "The Inequality Problem." If you read it closely, you noted that I clarified the terminology of "framing" and suggested that the research is highly conflicted. Brooks argued those issues but in typical fashion limits his discussion to the two.

Now, here's the real substance from Robert Reich. Reich takes on nearly all the issues. In contrast, if you go back through Brooks' columns, you'll notice that originally he rejected the notion of inequality. Very slowly, he's coming around. But I'm not certain why it's always a devil of a time for Brooks to admit to the policy problems. This conservative that liberals love seems congenitally unable at that point. Not Robert Reich.

Brooks, you'll remember, argues that we should be focusing on the social problems of the poor, not on inequality. At best, that's a half-truth.

But Reich has the appropriate rejoinders: "Baloney" and "Hogwash!" His knowledge of policy, labor and economics means a better and different analysis of the inequality problem. And Reich gets down to the real stuff...

David Brooks and the Inequality Problem

In a recent opinion article, David Brooks brilliantly untangles the issues in the widespread discussion of inequality, arguing that much of the debate misses the point. The terminology and research are not nearly as well understood as Brooks assumes. This is a very important issue for the voting public. Yet a great deal of basic clarity is missing around two very important issues in the article.

First of all, Brooks' underlying argument is around the "framing" of the issue. Business people use the language of “framing” regularly, but when you get down to what’s meant by it and its implications, it’s also widely misunderstood. The key to framing, which Brooks does not explain, is this: the way you frame a problem determines the solution to the problem. Furthermore, it’s important to understand how framing is used as well as it strengths and weaknesses...