Retail Revolution....

Last night at Concordia University, St. Paul, we had the opportunity to host the Network of Executive Women -- Twin Cities chapter for an event entitled "The Power of Personal Networking". The evening presented both a panelists view and a mentorship view of key areas in the consumer product goods world.

The panelists and mentors were engaging, witty and very knowledgeable about how the industry is transforming -- where technology -- consumer behavior and  customer value is taking the business today. Watch for the panelists discussion on a YouTube video over the next few weeks.

In the meantime enjoy the link to this article on the last 50 years that created a retail revolution.

http://adage.com/article/news/walmart-target-kmart-kohl-s-lead-retail-revolution/233379/

Walmart, Target, Kmart, Kohl's Lead 50 Years of Retail Revolution

Shaking Up Retail Landscape, Big Four Discounters Reshaped Our Idea of Shopping

Published: March 18, 2012 {Advertising Age}

The year was 1962.
John F. Kennedy was president. The nation was increasingly engaged in Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Johnny Carson became host of the "The Tonight Show," Marilyn Monroe died and the Rolling Stones made their debut in London. And in quiet cities across Middle America, a retail revolution was taking place.
Middle-class households were booming, and suburbs, as well as the first enclosed shopping malls, were catering to them. But savvy retailers were looking for ways to bring value to customers within a more profitable building footprint, according to Dan Butler, a VP at the National Retail Federation. Pioneers such as Walmart founder Sam Walton realized that people wanted value year-round, not just once a season when department stores cleared out merchandise".

So opens the article by Natalie Zmuda in Advertising Age on 3/22/2012 that describes the revolution that has occured in retailing over the last 50 years. Here is the link to the entire article with a revolving chart in it that when you scroll over it shows the timeline of these five retailers in the 50 years. It is a wonderful way to view the years and the impact in our retailing history.


http://adage.com/article/news/walmart-target-kmart-kohl-s-lead-retail-revolution/233379/

Transformational and Transactional Leaders

This blog entry was developed by Nancy Harrower and Steve Manderscheid. We discussed this topic over lunch one day and decided to collect our thoughts. To that end, we will focus on two different methods of leadership. James Burns, a prominent leadership theorist, suggested that leadership is one the most observed, yet least understood phenomena on earth. We agree with this observation. Just doing a quick Google search on the term “leadership” yielded more than 110,000,000 hits! Since no one has time to surf through all this data to find a few important insightful and practical theories on leadership, we chose to examine two prominent types of leadership: Transformational and Transactional Leadership.  These two types of leadership are common throughout most industries and organizations – we have seen these styles many times.

Transformational leadership can best be illustrated by a direct contrast with transactional leadership. According to Burns, a transformational leader changes the lives of followers and organizations by changing perceptions, values, and aspirations of the employees. Transformational leadership concept was further developed by Bernard Bass when he introduced the concept of segmenting transformational leadership into four components: high ethical standards, intellectual stimulation, a display of empathy, and inspired vision.

Transformational leaders are those unique individuals who truly work to improve the lives of others in their organization. The strength of the organization depends on the strength of the individual, and the transformational leader shows respect for the individual members. They guide others into enlightened action; they do not dictate action. They seek collaboration.

Transactional leadership, as first described by Max Weber in the late 1940s, and then revisited by Bass in the 1980s, is an opposite approach. Transactional leaders approach followers with a quid pro quo mentality; meaning that “you do this for me, and I do something for you.” This may mean that something positive will happen, but if you don’t do this, than something negative will happen. Do this for me, and I will reciprocate. The relationship of the leader to followers is based on power over task completion, as well as positive and negative consequences. Transactional leaders expect followers to act as directed; the individual’s overall growth and change may not be an element of concern to transactional leaders.

Moreover, transactional leaders like to dangle rewards to get desired behaviors. They often use the classic “carrot-and-stick” approach. Transactional leaders like to give rewards (carrots) or punishments (a poke with a stick) to drive desired behavior. Some of the managers (leaders) we have observed over the years were subtle transactional leaders. These leaders may be liked and respected, and perhaps even enjoyable to be around. However, the basis of the relationship was transactional in nature – again, specific actions of the individual were directed, not requested. Collaboration was often missing.

On the other hand, we have also observed very good transformational leaders. Those transformational leaders elicited a strong sense of commitment to their followers as well as to the organization’s vision, mission, and goals. All leaders can benefit from self-reflection and leadership development to drive organization results through transformational leadership.

Economy of Mongolia

I recently visited Mongolia as part of an accreditation team of the Accreditation Council of Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) doing a site visit on a leading Mongolian higher educational institution. The Mongolian Messenger reported some data on the Mongolian economy: GDP grew at 17.3 percent in 2012 and the unemployment rate fell from 13 percent in 2010 to 9 percent in 2011. Inflation was at 11 percent.

Mongolia is dealing with an interesting economic challenge - how to capture the benefits of the mineral-rich country as they make the transition towards capitalism? Could they effectively use their new wealth to build up their infrastructure and quality of life?

Mongolia has also to constantly maneuver between China and Russia and now increasingly with the multinationals interested in mineral exploration. This reality brings an interesting quality to MBA and other business students as they develop a unique global perspective - many of them speak multiple languages like Russian and Chinese and travel regionally. There is a strong Korean cultural influence too.

Mongolians are proud of their most famous leader - Chinggis Khaan. He is celebrated all across the country. They are also proud of an important product - cashmere garments.

Chinese Assets Overseas

The China Daily reports that more than 18,000 Chinese companies had overseas operations employing 1.2 million Chinese and holding assets worth $1.5 trillion. The data was quoted in a news article calling for more protection of Chinese people and assets overseas.

“The Fighting Sioux” - branding and tradition vs. racism concerns.

Names and brands represent a significant investment for all organizations, no matter if they are for-profit corporations, private organizations, or higher education institutions. The University of North Dakota has recently resurrected its moniker – “The Fighting Sioux.” For decades the school has been of two minds about its nickname and logo. Some supporters view the name as traditional, while opposition characterizes the name as offensive to Native Americans. The logo features a Native American warrior with feather headdress. Merchandise with the logo is popular throughout North Dakota and neighboring areas.

UND had officially dropped the Fighting Sioux nickname in 2011, but after local residents collected 17,000 signatures to put the issue to a state-wide vote, the school was required to reinstate the logo back into effect.

The issue continues to cause problems for UND. The University of Iowa rescinded an invitation to an April track meet due to the school’s nickname. Iowa policy does not allow athletic departments to schedule competitions with schools using Native American mascots, unless the mascot is approved by the NCAA. In a related topic, the women’s hockey team from UND was not able to have their team photo included in the tournament guide due to apparel with the Fighting Sioux logo.

Discussion Questions:

1.      What are the essential elements of this issue?

2.      What have been the experiences of other schools in similar situations?

3.      What is the impact of a university logo on sales of apparel? On other aspects of campus life?

4.      How important is brand to universities?

5.      What could UND do to resolve the issue?

we should all be like this

http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=5577803556494254165&ids=czsUc3sQcPgMcz4VdjsQcjwRdiMSdzoOejoMdj0NcjoOejsUdPkRb3ASej0Nc3kQc30Ue3kPcP8UdjkIczsQd3AUe3oTdP4SczoMe3sRdiMRdz4Qdj8QejgSdjkPc3wTdPkR&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod2-b-ttl-0&ut=3N9DuwtoKrxB81

leadership lessons- good stuff

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/03/05/five-leadership-lessons-from-james-t-kirk/

The Fed's New Job Calculator

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has come out with a new Jobs Calculator.

"The Jobs Calculator calculates the net employment change needed to achieve a target unemployment rate after a specified number of months. The user can adjust the target unemployment rate, the number of months, and the assumed labor force growth."

I explored what it would take to get the unemployment rate down to 4 percent in 12 months - the answer - an increase in the average household employment by around 648, 000. We got our work cut out for us!

Youth and the Global Economy

The current edition of Finance and Development brought out by the International Monetary Fund focuses on the challenges facing the world's youth and raises the critical challenge: youth represents the emerging human capital in countries around the world yet there is underinvestment in this "capital"  during the current global economic downturn. Faced with high unemployment rates and other challenges youth have emerged as major advocates for political and economic change. Articles in this special edition document these experiences in many countries of the world.