I long for the days when executives said their people were their most important assets and really meant it. When I worked for a global corporation in the 1970’s, I was somehow convinced that was so.

By the late 1980’s, I felt a tremor beneath my feet. Shifts in technology, international trade relationships and the U.S. tax code changed the game. Automation meant companies could produce more with fewer people. Continue reading “How companies can become good neighbors” →

Adapted from my op-ed in the Rochester Business Journal dated February 3, 2017

I once asked the rhetorical question “Can the Nation’s Mayors Save the Federal Government from Itself?” The federal government was not designed to function well, I postulated. It was designed so that power would not be concentrated in one person whose dictatorial whims might lead the nation astray.

The change in our national political environment is driving new thinking at state capitols and in our cities. I recently heard Los Angeles Mayor Gil Garcetti refer to the constitutional right of states and cities to exercise the power not granted to the federal government. He was talking about the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution:

Continue reading “It’s time for cities to lead from the bottom up” →