The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation reads the Internet so that you don’t have to, sharing a short list of curated blog posts for your Friday reading.
BHQ
“In a dynamic world, there is no single way to approach an issue, and we must learn from one another in the process of trying to move the debate forward.” – Margaret Spellings, President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation
The Business Horizon Quarterly (BHQ) is the Forum for Innovation's signature publication. Its purpose is to share informed insights on emerging issues facing the American business community. By asking questions like “what is growth?” and “what is innovation?”, the Forum aims to inform and to spur debate.
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BHQ Editions
March 7, 2013
By: David C. Chavern
A Banner Year Belies an Underlying Trend
2012 seemed like a pretty significant year for women across American society. In November, Americans elected a spate of new women to Congress—today, we have a record 20 women in the Senate and 82 in the House.
In the business world, we saw several talented women soar to top posts in some of America’s leading corporations. After serving four years as Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg was the first woman named to the social networking giant’s board of directors. Marissa Mayer was named president and CEO of Yahoo!, making her the youngest chief executive of a Fortune 500 company. Ginni Rometty of IBM, Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin, and Phebe Novakovic of General Dynamics have each recently become Fortune 500 CEOs. And numerous others took the helm of Fortune 1000 companies or were named chief operating officer or chief financial officer.
Yet what seems like a banner year belies the underlying trend. Some 40 years after the feminist movement, women have hit a plateau when it comes to the power seats, particularly in the C-suite or on corporate boards.
November 27, 2012
By: Rich Cooper
If you do anything for any amount of time, you learn that there are always ways to improve it. After a year of writing and publishing the Business Horizon Quarterly (BHQ), that’s what we’ve done.
November 27, 2012
By: Rich Cooper
In the first years following the aftermath of World War II, a young and relatively unknown American diplomat named George Kennan wrote a series of memos that changed the post-war world. Assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Kennan observed the expansionist interests of the then-Soviet Union and, seeing cause for concern, wrote to his superiors detailing ways to address the threat he saw emanating from Joseph Stalin and his Communist lieutenants. The approach that Kennan outlined became known as the “containment strategy” that was utilized by the United States throughout the Cold War era.
Every president from Harry S. Truman to George H.W. Bush based their national security strategies on the cornerstone of Kennan’s memos, the most famous of which was published under the pseudonym “X” in Foreign Affairs in July 1947.
The power of Kennan’s memos inspired NCF to ask its Scholars and new class of Fellows as well as a select group of guest contributors to each write a memo to the future detailing their insights in ten select areas. Detailed on the ensuing pages are “memos to the future” from these notable individuals who share their insights on where we need to go in the years ahead to be successful.
November 27, 2012
By: John Raidt
Throughout a long and contentious election season, fractious campaign messaging has focused on highlighting the “differences” between the political parties and their candidates. Amid the partisan fray, however, the party platforms reveal refreshing accord on a top national priority: improving the global competitiveness of the American economy. National consensus on this objective is an encouraging first step. Now comes the more difficult part—achieving our aim.
There’s no better time than a presidential inauguration and the start of a new Congress to launch a future-defining national project, provided that after the oaths of office are sworn the parties elect to unite for action, rather than retreat to their political corners to regroup for the next electoral scrum. A mission of such magnitude is best commenced with a presidential declaration of commitment that inspires public enthusiasm and marshals our national energies, akin to President Kennedy’s pledge to land an American on the moon.
November 27, 2012
By: Bret Swanson
The United States is mired in the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression. Worse, we are told by many economists and policymakers that things are not going to get much better. We are experiencing, they say, the “New Normal,” a permanent downward departure from America’s historic 3% growth rate. New Normal projections are an understandable response to the trauma of the financial panic, the European debt crisis, deleveraging, and downtrending demographics, summing to a suggestion of slower growth—maybe 2% per year–as far as the eye can see.
Indeed, with existing policy and leaders telling us to prepare for slower growth ahead, the New Normal is probably an accurate prediction. The New Normal, however, assumes we are powerless to do anything about it. Its fatalism runs counter to the American ethos. The great leadership challenge of our time is to show the future is still possible and to chart a path of economic resurgence.
We’ve seen this play before. Forty years ago, things also looked bleak. Inflation was starting to break out. Vietnam had dragged on for nearly a decade. Watergate was burbling. Oil prices were beginning a dramatic climb. We had entered what the Club of Rome asserted in its famous 1972 “Limits to Growth” report was a long state of decline. It was time to downgrade expectations, rein in ambitions, and hunker down for the lean decades ahead.