Gift planning in the year 2010: imagine the unimaginable. 2

Philanthropy in general, and fund raising in particular, is changing. Such change is more radical than most recognize and certainly faster than most organizations are prepared for. Those that anticipate the change and adjust to it have a good chance of thriving. Those that fail to do so will struggle and may become irrelevant.     

Retention through redemption

Corporate America and the U.S. Navy share one big problem: employee retention. Today's knowledge workers hop from start-up to start-up. And 40% of the navy's new recruits leave the service before their four-year tours of duty are up. D. Michael Abrashoff came face to face with the navy's retention problem when he took command of the USS Benfold. Before he became captain, sailors couldn't get away from the ship fast enough. Today the vessel is the pride of the Pacific fleet, and sailors from other ships are clamoring to join its crew. In this firsthand account, Abrashoff explains how he got the ship and its crew back on course by breaking bad habits--personal and professional ones--and jettisoning old attitudes. During his 21 months aboard the Benfold, Abrashoff came to realize that in today's technology-intensive U.S. Navy, the traditional command-and-control style wouldn't work. And it hadn't--the Benfold's 310 sailors had cheered derisively when Abrashoff's predecessor had left the ship. So he defied 225 years of navy tradition in his quest to engage the sailors in their work, increase their performance, and keep them around for their entire tours of duty. He retained his crew by redeeming them--showing them how to be not just better sailors but better people, too. That meant breaking them down when they were at their worst and then building them up to reach their best. It also meant personal redemption for Abrashoff; he resolved to really listen to what his sailors were saying. The result? Cost-saving ideas for the entire navy and surging confidence and commitment among crew members.     

The pregnant applicant: normal alterations in physiologic parameters and testing

Pregnancy affects virtually every organ system, and "baseline" normal laboratory test levels change throughout gestation.     

Innovation at the speed of information

Conventional project-management tools--PERT charts and Gantt charts, for example--were created to help manage sequences of discrete tasks that make up large construction projects. Yet these tools don't capture clearly the back-and-forth of information that takes place in innovative processes, such as product development. Conventional tools are designed to answer the question, "What other tasks must be completed before I begin this one?" But product development planners, especially in high-tech businesses, need tools that answer a very different question: "What information do I need from other tasks before I can complete this one?" The author describes the Design Structure Matrix (DSM), a project management tool that focuses on representing the information flows of a project rather than its work flows. He explains how the DSM works and how to use it to make development processes more efficient. A project DSM can show which information exchanges involve design iteration and how well a process anticipates the need for rework. In addition, the author suggests four ways to improve a company's information flows: rearranging the sequence of tasks, reconsidering the organization of tasks, reducing the number of information exchanges, and managing unplannable work. By stripping away the mystery around information exchange during innovation, the DSM can give managers far more control over their most risky and expensive projects.     

Breaking out of the innovation box

In most companies, investments in innovation follow a boom-bust cycle. For a time, the cash flows. Then, as the economy sours or companies rethink their priorities, the taps go dry. But when research budgets are slashed, the strong projects are often abandoned along with the weak ones. Promising initiatives are cut off just when they are about to bear fruit. Expensive labs are closed; partnership agreements costing millions in legal fees are thrown away. When disruptive changes in the competitive landscape come, companies are caught flat-footed. Sustainable innovation requires a new approach: Instead of being largely isolated projects, innovation initiatives need to gain access to the insights and capabilities of other companies. To be protected from the ax of short-term cost reductions and the faddishness born of easy money, the initiatives must become part of the ongoing commerce that takes place among companies. But how can businesses traffic in such sensitive information without giving their competitors an advantage? The answer, the author contends, lies in a practice that's been common since the Middle Ages: the use of independent intermediaries to facilitate the exchange of sensitive information among companies without revealing the principals' identities or motives and without otherwise compromising their interests. Executive search firms, for example, allow job seekers to remain anonymous during the early stages of a search, and they protect businesses from disclosing their hiring plans to rivals. A network of innovation intermediaries would be in a unique position to visualize new opportunities synthesized from insights and technologies provided by several companies--ideas that might never occur to businesses working on their own.     

The effect of the Senior Citizens' Freedom to Work Act of 2000 on employer-provided pension and medical plans

On April 7, 2000 President Clinton signed the Senior Citizens' Freedom to Work Act. The act reduces the Social Security retirement benefit penalties previously imposed on 65- through 69-year-old workers who earned more than nominal incomes after enrolling in the program. This article analyzes the impact that the act will have on retirement decisions of the affected cohorts of older workers and closes with an analysis of how the act may affect employer-provided pension, medical and paid leave plans.     

Evolution of Corporate Law and the Transplant Effect: Lessons from Six Countries

The pattern of legal change in countries that have their legalsystems transplanted from abroad differs markedly from countriesthat develop their own systems, irrespective of the legal familyfrom which their laws come. In "transplant" countries, law oftenstagnates for long periods of time; when change takes place,it tends to be radical, if not erratic. External models remaindominant even years after the law was transplanted. Althoughthere is some evidence that transplant countries have engagedin comprehensive legal reforms in response to the pressuresof globalization, it is still too early to judge whether thesenew changes can be taken as a sign that the legal systems inthese countries have started a process of endogenous legal evolution.