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Scale Is Fail: How Big Companies Need To Act Small To...

S.E.C. Subpoenas Tesla Over Elon Musk’s Tweet About Going Private

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Male Cheerleaders Make History in the NFL Amid Cries for More...

New Pearson Research Finds YouTube and Video Are Top Learning Tools...

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The Harris Poll®@HarrisPoll·

According to our research, millennials’ #stress about their finances comes from the lack of #investing. 30% of #millennials who do not currently invest beyond an employee-sponsored retirement plan, say their barrier to investing is that they don't know how https://t.co/32WdjKm58A

The Harris Poll®@HarrisPoll·

To grow big, think small. Read our CEO @johngerzema’s latest @Forbes article “Scale Is Fail: How big Companies Need To Act Small To Thrive Today”
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#leadership #corporatelandscape #corporatereputation #largecompanies #smallness

The Harris Poll®@HarrisPoll·

Our @HarrisPoll data revealed that 59% of adults agree that some sort of public service should be required of Americans, whether at the #community, #state, or #national level https://t.co/2l57Nj4UDp

The Harris Poll

Scale Is Fail: How Big Companies Need To Act Small To Thrive Today

By John Gerzema, Harris Poll CEO | Forbes | About five years ago, I had an early glimpse into America’s changing corporate landscape in, of all places, Japan. While researching our book, The Athen By John Gerzema, Harris Poll CEO | Forbes |

About five years ago, I had an early glimpse into America’s changing corporate landscape in, of all places, Japan. While researching our book, The Athena Doctrine, I met Ryo Nakagawa. His startup, Share0, helps self-employed entrepreneurs and consultants find office space in companies with empty suites. For generations, the Japanese embraced the “salaryman” model of work, which called for workers to devote themselves to a corporation that would, in turn, provide long-term employment. But Ryo believed the future belongs not to big organizations but to individuals with skills who come together for collaboration.

Born into the Lost Decades of low growth with fewer secure positions available in big corporations, a vast cohort of young Japanese must now reconsider the salaryman ideal and invent other ways to establish themselves.

Fast forward, and a similar dynamic is underway in the U.S. In our annual Reputation Quotient Study of corporate reputation, many large companies declined in esteem and trust. But what really caught our attention was the trendline: Fifteen years ago, the largest companies were the most respected, but today, many with the best public reputations are smaller, regional players and those with intimate customer service and values that resonate within their consumer communities.

Curious, we next assessed CEO leadership and a similar trend emerged. Even among larger companies, CEOs who were relatable, humanistic or who spoke out for employees and issues they believed in often lifted the perceptions of their firms. Berkshire Hathaway is ranked No. 24 overall in the RQ study, but Warren Buffett jumps to No. 1 in our RQ leadership ranking, while Apple moves from No. 29 to No. 9 when the public is asked to rate their trust and respect of Tim Cook.

This shift in trust signals a change in consumer culture and values. Thanks to social media-fueled transparency, the public has more insight into the business practices and values of leading companies. In fact, in a 2015 Gallup Poll, 67% of U.S. adults reported having a great deal of confidence in small businesses, far exceeding the 21% who were similarly confident in big businesses.

It seems that a behemoth scale today is no guarantee of having consumers’ trust. Instead, there is an emerging belief that a bigger business doesn’t always equate to a better business. Even CEOs like Google’s Sundar Pichai have stated as much: "As a big company, you are constantly trying to foolproof yourself against being big, because you see the advantage of being small, nimble and entrepreneurial,” he told The Guardian. “You always think there is someone in the Valley, working on something in a garage -- something that will be better.”

Read more at Forbes.

3 min Read

Finance

S.E.C. Subpoenas Tesla Over Elon Musk’s Tweet About Going Private

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission served Tesla with a subpoena following CEO Elon Musk's controversial tweets about taking the company private. Musk offered no details of his funding un The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission served Tesla with a subpoena following CEO Elon Musk's controversial tweets about taking the company private.

Musk offered no details of his funding until August 7, when he told investors that he was in talks with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and other potential backers, even though that financing was not yet secured.

Musk's tweets may have violated U.S. securities law if he misled investors. According to an SEC rule, a company's public statements must be true. Each of Tesla's directors has received a written legal order to testify in the matter. A subpoena is a first step in a formal inquiry and subsequently, an investigation, which can take years to yield any action or none at all.

Tesla's shares fell by 3% in afternoon trading, and although the company ranks #3 overall in The Harris Poll's 2018 Reputation Quotient study, and ranked #1 out of the 100 most visible companies in the U.S. for its "vision and leadership," Musk continues to face criticism for being a brash, scrappy iconoclast and it remains to be seen how his latest actions will affect the company.

Readers of the popular electric transportation and sustainable energy news site, Electrek, however support Musk's decision to take the company private. Agreeing with his key rationale for the move:

"...the reason for doing this is all about creating the environment for Tesla to operate best. As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders. Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term. Finally, as the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market, being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776

https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1026912973120462848

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026914941004001280

2 min Read

Client

Hunting for A Job? Be Careful What You Post

By Carol Wolf | MoneyWatch | CBS News | Think before you post, job-seekers: Your potential employer is likely watching your social media feeds. Seventy percent of employers said they look what

2 min Read

News

Male Cheerleaders Make History in the NFL Amid Cries for More Female Leadership

For the first time in the history of the NFL, male cheerleaders have joined the ranks of its elite cheerleading squads. Two NFL teams, The Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, added men to th

2 min Read

Client

New Pearson Research Finds YouTube and Video Are Top Learning Tools for Generation Z

From contouring tutorials to crash courses in world history, YouTube has evolved from a one-stop teaching hub to a leading learning tool for Generation Z. According to a new study from Pearson and From contouring tutorials to crash courses in world history, YouTube has evolved from a one-stop teaching hub to a leading learning tool for Generation Z.

According to a new study from Pearson and The Harris Poll titled, “Beyond Millennials: The Next Generation of Learners,” Gen Z ranked YouTube and video as preferred methods for learning by significant margins over Millennials. In fact, YouTube was second only to teachers as a learning tool, and ranked well ahead of lectures, in-person activities with classmates, learning applications and books.

“Generation Z didn’t have to adapt to new technologies like their predecessors--they have been immersed in it their entire lives,” explains Asha Choksi, Vice President of Global Research and Insights at Pearson. "This has led to students demanding changes to education, including accelerated, flexible and adaptive education options and tools.”

The study was conducted by The Harris Poll in August 2018 and it illustrates Gen Z’s educational preferences, in comparison to millennials, as well as some of their values and ambition. For instance, it revealed that by a margin of more than 20%, Gen Z respondents were more likely to say they want to make it to the top of their future profession one day versus Millennials. Other important values the study uncovered include altruism as 60% of Gen Z respondents agreed that they want to help people less fortunate, compared to 48% of Millennials; and diversity as more than 6 in 10 Gen Zers agreed that having diverse friends makes them a better person, while slightly more than half of Millennials agreed with that statement.

The research also dispelled the popular belief that Gen Zers have little regard for college as 80% of Gen Z respondents agreed that college either has a fair amount of value, is a good value or an excellent value. Only 20% of Generation Z students said college has “little value” or “no value at all.”

The study paints an insightful portrait of Gen Z that clearly distinguishes them from their Millennial predecessors —a necessary factor in rethinking how we engage this emerging generational cohort.

“To understand the future of learning—and especially higher education—we have to understand not just how the future of work and skills is evolving, but how students are changing and what’s on their minds,” says Choksi.

You can see the full report here.

2 min Read

The Harris Poll

Harris On Demand

Scale Is Fail: How Big Companies Need To Act Small To...

S.E.C. Subpoenas Tesla Over Elon Musk’s Tweet About Going Private

Hunting for A Job? Be Careful What You Post

Male Cheerleaders Make History in the NFL Amid Cries for More...

New Pearson Research Finds YouTube and Video Are Top Learning Tools...

THP Archives

Scale Is Fail: How Big Companies Need To Act Small To Thrive Today

S.E.C. Subpoenas Tesla Over Elon Musk’s Tweet About Going Private

Hunting for A Job? Be Careful What You Post

Male Cheerleaders Make History in the NFL Amid Cries for More Female Leadership

New Pearson Research Finds YouTube and Video Are Top Learning Tools for Generation Z

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