The single most significant change has been the globalization of labor markets. Product markets - trade in goods - have been globalizing for years. But now, with the reduction in communication expenses and the building of all sorts of IT infrastructure, essentially any job can be done almost anywhere.
Jeffrey PfefferWitness Donald Trump's current presidential campaign. So first people need to find the white spaces, the unexploited or underexploited niches where there is less competition and more opportunity.
Jeffrey PfefferPeople need to be ready to have truly "global" careers. Just as companies now face world-wide competition, so, too, do people. Therefore, individuals need to get out in the world more - some large percentage of Americans don't even have a passport - and work in different countries.
Jeffrey PfefferTake care of your customers, and you will have a successful business. Don't, and you won't. The airlines need to figure this out - soon.
Jeffrey PfefferPart of strategy is figuring out what you're good at, figuring out what you're not good at, and then getting yourself in position to succeed by doing mostly what you have a competitive advantage doing.
Jeffrey PfefferPossibly the biggest issue, however, is that performance appraisals focus managers attention on precisely the wrong thing: individual people. As W. Edwards Deming, the father of the quality movement, taught a long time ago, company performance often results more from variations in systems than from the individuals doing the work.
Jeffrey Pfeffer