Management Changes...

Fearing they’ll crush employees’ confidence and erode performance, employers are asking managers to ease up on harsh feedback.
If you don’t have anything nice to say, upper management has a tip: Try harder.

“Accentuate the positive” has become a new mantra at workplaces, where bosses now dole out frequent praise, urge employees to celebrate small victories and focus performance reviews around a particular worker’s strengths instead.

The shift may annoy leaders who rose in a tough-love era in business, but executives say hard-edge tactics simply do more harm than good.
When employees’ flaws are laid bare, “there’s that mental ‘ugh’ and shrug of, ‘This is who I am’. Entry level managers will lose the presumed power of fault finding.

For years, those discussions focused largely on employee missteps and where they needed to improve.   Bit by bit, consulting firm are changing the way managers evaluate employee performance.

“We would bring them in and beat them down a bit,”. After the reviews,  some employees left the company as their confidence and performance slipped; others seemed rattled.

Now, managers are expected to extol staffers’ strengths during reviews and check-ins, explaining how the person can use his or her talents to tackle aspects of the job that come less naturally. Bosses[some may be unqualified] are advised to mention no more than one or two areas that require development. Just a though.

He's history-Brian Williams

NBC executives have not publicly defended Williams, fueling media speculation that his job may be in jeopardy. Williams may not wanted such public show of support, fearing it would appear to be the kiss of death.

The new research came as NBC tried to decide whether Mr. Williams can continue as anchor and managing editor of its evening news broadcast. The network’s internal investigation was underway contacting other staff members who have worked with Mr. Williams as well as soldiers involved in the Iraq helicopter incident.

Brian Williams decided on his own to step aside from his NBC newscast for several days and was under no pressure to do so by network executives, a person familiar with the situation says.

By announcing a leave of absence for "several days," Brian Williams started a ticking clock that will end with his return to the "NBC Nightly News" anchor chair.    Unless he doesn't return.

For NBC, the decision is about more than journalistic ethics. It is also about business and trust in the network. For me the Trust in the anchor and the Network is the most crucial. We already got enough fake reporting.

Just a thought.

Sports, is it?

For the second year in a raw I am disappointed at Sports Illustrated choices. It seems that SI is moving into Play Boy territories.

 Just a thought.

New Era?... Naaaa

Sen. Ted Cruz blasted President Obama's economic policy, claiming that the economy has only improved for the rich.

"The top 1 percent under President Obama, the millionaires and billionaires that he constantly demagogued, earned a higher share for our income than any year since 1928," 

Cruz said that the middle class has not seen the same boost as the rich.
"Hardworking men and women across America are hurting. "I'm glad President Obama and Hillary Clinton have discovered income inequality because it’s increased dramatically under their failed policies."

Mitch McConnell said that the economic recovery touted by Obama has only helped the wealthy.

Jeb Bush's speech before the Detroit Economic Club was the highest-profile example to date of a Republican presidential hopeful embracing economic inequality and middle-class stagnation as problems that define America.

In 2009, Bush left the WH while unemployment 10.7%, two Wars, and the collapse of US economy.  Let us see what the New-Old Republicans do to the Middle class. Let us pray.

Just a thought.

Kayla Mueller

In the few years since graduating from university, Kayla Mueller had come a long way from her American home in Arizona. The 26-year-old had moved to a Turkish town on the Syrian border, and was doing everything to help civilians whose lives had been destroyed in the neighbouring country's war.

 

She had a generous and adventurous spirit. Since graduating from Northern Arizona University in 2009 she had backpacked in different parts of the world. She had spent time in Egypt and volunteered in Africa.   

She is a sweet and gentle girl. She laughed easily and was extremely caring for others. The name she chose for her blog, 'imbued with hope' was perfectly fitting to her character.
She began volunteering with every aid agency she could. In the space of a few short months, her enthusiasm and talent had gotten her access to some of the most respected aid agencies, including the Danish Refugee Council.

She was always looking to do more. She was working with a local Turkish NGO to create a community centre in Kilis, a town on the Syrian border home to one of Turkey's biggest refugee camps.

Say a prayer for her. Just a thought. 

BadAss...

Horner [15 years old] is the first person in history to be charged with  ‘swatting‘, a trend in which a person anonymously files a false police report, such as a murder or bomb threat, in hopes of provoking the police to raid an individual’s home or business. Prosecutors in the case proved that Horner called in multiple false threats against rival online gamers, resulting in SWAT team raids of their residence.

Defense lawyers told the courtroom that Horner, who goes by the gamertag BadAssDwg69, was upset after being repeatedly beaten by a fellow gamer at Battlefield 4. After obtaining the rival gamers information, prosecutors say Horner called police and reported a murder/hostage situation at the home. SWAT team then raided the house, shooting and critically injuring the “Livestreamer’s” father in the process.

Horner was charged as an adult. Horner’s guilty charge stems from two counts of domestic terrorism, related to his manipulation of an enforcement response, and injuries to innocents resulting from those actions.  He was sentenced to 25 years to life in federal prison.

Shameless Brian

  

Brian Williams had been telling a story that wasn't true, and the episode evolved over the years, with his personal involvement gradually growing more perilous. In a 2003 was described as "a close call in the skies over Iraq," Mr. Williams said, "the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky."

In 2013, He told David Letterman that he had actually been on the helicopter that got shot down, adding that a crew member had been injured and received a medal. "We figured out how to land safely, we landed very quickly and hard. We were stuck, four birds in the desert and we were north out ahead of the other Americans."
On the "Nightly News" recently, he described "a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an R.P.G.,"

The current controversy erupted after he spoke about it on air during a tribute to a retired soldier. Some veterans took to Facebook to complain.
A host of military veterans and pundits came forward on television and social media, challenging Mr. Williams's assertion that he had simply made a mistake when he spoke, on several occasions, about having been in a United States military helicopter forced down by enemy fire in Iraq in 2003. 

In fact, some of the soldiers present in Iraq that day had been quietly fuming about Mr. Williams's reporting for years, and had even tried to alert the news media to it earlier. Joe Summerlin, who was on the helicopter that was forced down, said in an interview that he and some of his fellow crew watched Mr. Williams's initial story and were angered by his characterization of the events.
                
Mr. Williams apologized and said that he had been on a different helicopter, behind the one that had sustained fire, and that he had inadvertently "conflated" the two. 
 On CNN's "New Day," Chris Cuomo said that attributing the lie to "the fog of war" wasn't acceptable and the Internet would "eat him alive." Rem Rieder, a USA Today media columnist, wrote, "It's hard to see how Williams gets past this, and how he survives as the face of NBC News."

Those who faked the story and created the Fiction must be immediately removed.    Just a thought

Your money-Pfizer !

Pfizer has agreed to buy Hospira, the top provider of injectable drugs, for $15.2 billion, in a move to expand its global product portfolio.  Pfizer said the acquisition [for $90 a share $65 yesterday] will provide a growing revenue stream for its global established pharmaceutical business.

Hospira is a top provider of sterile injectable drugs, including those used for acute care and cancer treatment infusion technologies and biosimilars.
Pfizer CEO Ian Read said the company's global business "will benefit from a significantly enhanced product portfolio in growing markets."

The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the deal, which must be cleared by regulators and Hospira shareholders. It's expected to close in the second half of 2015.

Earlier, Pfizer abandoned its attempt to buy AstraZeneca for nearly $118 billion as a deadline approached without a last-minute change of heart by the British drugmaker.
The decision ends a month-long public fight between two of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies that sparked political concerns on both sides of Atlantic over jobs and corporate tax maneuvers.

Pfizer got money, but no medications in Research and Development. So what to do?   All in all, there is no new medications to the market, but will cost you more since US market prices is out of control compared to Canada, England..etc

Just a thought.

Third rail- Fireball !!?

"The gates came down on top of the vehicle, which was stopped on the tracks," Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said in a statement. "The driver got out to look at the rear of the car, then she got back in and drove forward and was struck."

Another driver stopped directly behind the SUV said he started to back up to give the vehicle's driver room but instead she pulled forward.

The fiery scene began to unfold when the Harlem Line train struck the black Mercedes-Benz SUV at the narrow, two-lane Commerce Street crossing, causing an explosion that engulfed both the car and the train.

The car was "pushed about 1,000 feet down the tracks. Some 400 feet of the electrified third rail sliced through the first car of a Metro-North train after it plowed into an SUV, burning the entire interior of the train car and killing five passengers, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation confirmed this evening.
 

It seems that the third rail caused most of the damage and the fire.  Just a thought.

Convenience...!

Lance Armstrong built a career and a lucrative cult personality out of lies, seeing the truth as something only suckers would champion. As his fame and fortune grew, so did the stakes. The few who dared question or contradict his version of reality soon felt his wrath.

Even when he finally did come clean about using performance-enhancing drugs, it was more about self-preservation than true remorse. His legacy was in shambles and his seven Tour de France titles had been stripped, and he was now a pariah when only a few years earlier he'd been hailed as a hero.

Just last week, Armstrong admitted that for as "brutal" as his fall from grace has been these last few years, he'd do it all over again. Armstrong once again tried to excuse the lies and the deceptions, saying he was only trying to keep pace with the rest of the peloton.

He pointed to the benefits that came from his lies: the spike in business for his sponsors, the growth of cycling, the increased donations and awareness for cancer patients.  [An interview with the BBC.]


As if that makes it OK to bend and twist the truth until it's no longer recognizable. To blur the line between right and wrong until you wonder where it was or why the distinction ever mattered in the first place. But in his world, the truth is a matter of convenience.

On a hit-and-run in Aspen, Colo. where legal penalties are minor, he and girlfriend both agreed to pin the blame on her for hitting two cars after a night of partying.


Too bad he kept most of his money. Just a thought.