management

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is a Fortune 35 firm specializing in food processing and distribution. They recently announced an accounting revision, together with their Chief Financial Officer’s resignation. The accounting revision specifically modified the profit distribution across ADM’s segments and showed that profits at ADM’s were previously overstated. Executive compensation at ADM was tied directly to the Nutrition segment’s performance. Essentially, each executive stood to gain $7.4 million in variable compensation from the misstatement. Archer Daniels Midland’s compensation plan unwittingly…

I reflected recently on some of the unexpected challenges I’ve had in the workplace. I realized that some of them were due to generational differences between the baby boomers and the younger generations. I want to bring the care and concern that the baby boomer leaders I knew who influenced and counseled me, but also be more mindful of these generational differences as Generation Z enters the workforce.

Non profits using QuickBooks Online (QBO) face setting up a chart of accounts as one of their first tasks. While QBO provides a chart of accounts (CoA) target out of the box for non-profits, it needs to be customized for most non-profits. In this article, I walk through the steps on how a nonprofit should think about their chart of accounts, how to design the chart of accounts, and how to make the changes in QuickBooks Online.

Many people routinely show gratitude by saying “thank you” or “good work” or “nice job” to a colleague or staff member who has completed a task. After all, it’s good to be polite. While that’s a good start, saying “Thanks” doesn’t go far enough.

I regularly read or listen to business books as assigned reading at work and for personal development. As my time has been limited recently, I’ve been reaching for the cheating method – reading an online abstract – more often. I considered why am I reading the short abstracts instead of the longer works – and my conclusion was that many business books suffer from one of three problems.

Basecamp’s policy changes around diversity, employee communications, and benefits provides a case study in how not to perform organizational change management after 30% of their employees quit. Jason Fried and David Hasson should have been careful to limit the scope of their changes; been thoughtful in their communication plans for major changes; and been realistic on employee response to those changes. This bungled change contrasts highly with that of Coinbase where the similar “No Politics” rule was applied with much less fallout.