Weekend Digest: GM Names First Female CEO

For our weekend business and political readers:

NEW LEADER FOR GM
In a historic move, General Motors has made 33-year company veteran Mary Barra its new CEO and the first woman to ever run a major car company.

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson and the GM board have selected product chief Mary Barra to succeed him, and Akerson is retiring in January. Arguably, it will make her the highest-profile female CEO in the world.

Forbes reports, “It also set in motion a cascade of other management changes in the biggest re-set of the automaker’s leadership since the 2009 U.S.-government bailout.”

But the fact that Barra will become the first female in the highest-profile CEO spot in a historically male-dominated industry is a dramatic development nonetheless. It also comes on the heels of another huge advancement by GM, as the company finally was freed this week from U.S.-government control by the Treasury’s sale of its remaining stake in the company, at a $10.5-billion loss.

For the full story and more on Barra’s rise as the most important woman in the auto industry go to this link.

BIGGEST CHARTS FROM 2013
There’s nothing more to the point than charts and graphs, and Harvard Business Review has posted its “10 Charts from 2013 That Changed the Way We Think.”

1. Asian countries are overtaking European countries when it comes to prosperity.

For the remaining nine and detailed charts for each, that include among other things, “the most common area of weakness for ineffective senior leaders,” click on this link.

ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL WORKFORCE JUST DOESN’T CUT IT ANY MORE
According to workintelligent.ly, there are “Five types of workers in the new world of work.”

Whether you want to blame the launch of Facebook in 2004, the 2007 introduction of the iPhone or the boom of cloud technologies in just the past few years, it’s hard to ignore the fact that offices – and the people who fill them – are operating differently than they ever have before.

Just look around and you’ll see different demographics of employees driven to reach their goals in a variety of different ways.

Take a look at this link to find out what they are and although helping you succeed “in some cases, their workstyles may be far from familiar to your methods or experiences as a leader.”

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE LIVE INTERVIEW?
Is “electronic gatekeeping” preventing you from finding the right job candidate?

Now according to one expert, “These automated systems have replaced much of the subjective evaluation – both of written resumes and cover letters, and of in-person or over-the-phone interviews – that used to be done by human recruiters.”

Christina Bauske is looking for a senior-level position in health care management or IT. She was laid off in a corporate reorganization, and has been assiduously filling out online job applications.

“In some systems you can’t even tell that it actually has been received,” she says. “You don’t get any kind of email confirmation. So it’s like going into the dark hole.”

What other online “dark holes” do employment candidates face and what are some companies doing to try and reverse that?  Click on this link from Marketplace for the full story.

NORTH CAROLINA SLUGFEST
In 2014 North Carolina voters will have a choice between a “rookie” Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate and as usual a “conservative challenger.”

It would be tough to find another state where the political terrain has shifted as dramatically as it has here — from kindling hopes of a Democratic revival in the South just a few years ago, to becoming a conservative hotbed that banned gay marriage, tightened restrictions on abortion clinics and enacted a sweeping voter ID law.

“It will be a choice between Kay Hagan, a rookie Democratic senator who voted for Obamacare and says, however haltingly, that she would do so again, and a conservative challenger.”

Hagan, who triumphed against longtime Republican Elizabeth Dole to win the seat in 2008, is clearly banking on the hope that voters will punish her opponents for the actions of the GOP-led state legislature and their own hard-right views.

To find out who Hagan’s challengers might be and how this tight race may unfold, go to this link from Politico.

FLIPPING SEATS
Real Clear Politics says, “A lot of the commentary about the 2014 elections has focused on the limited opportunities for either party to gain in the House of Representatives.”

This is true even in the context of a 2010-like wave. In such a circumstance, it is difficult to envision Republican gains topping 20 seats, because there are so few Democrats representing vulnerable districts.

But what about the Senate?

The Senate, however, is a different beast entirely. The reason is simple:

To find out, click on this link.

RYAN’S RECORD
Wisconsin Republican Representative Paul Ryan has served eight terms in Congress. A lightning rod at times for the party, he has become an evening news constant but what is his true record?

Representative Paul D. Ryan’s eight terms in Congress have produced much political celebrity and Republican respect but just two laws bearing the Ryan name — a renamed post office and a modified excise tax on arrows like the ones he uses for bow hunting.

And now he’s under fire.

For the first time, the conservative wunderkind and former vice-presidential nominee is taking withering fire from movement conservatives who see the deal as a betrayal by a former ally. Potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 immediately went on the attack, blasting the deal and challenging Mr. Ryan’s status as the thinking man’s conservative.

For more on this “thinking man’s conservative” and his possible future, go to this link from the New York Times.

THAT INFAMOUS SELFIE
We’ve all done it. You know that selfie you sent to grandma or your kids. But wow…when the President of the U.S. was clicked in one at a memorial service for a world leader, it went viral in a hurry.

And then, there was the hand shake.

On a day when President Obama delivered a stirring eulogy for Nelson Mandela, the South African leader to whom he credits the origins of his political stirrings, much of the media’s attention was focused on two unplanned moments steeped — rightly or wrongly — with meaning by political observers.

The Washington Post has its take on the whole incident at this link.

HUCKABEE KEEPING 2016 PRESIDENTIAL OPTIONS OPEN
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee tells the New York Times Jonathan Martin that he’s still “keeping the door open” for a 2016 Presidential run.

“If I talk to people and they say, ‘If you run, we’re in and we’re in a big way,’ that’s going be helpful,” he said. “If I don’t hear that, you know what? This will be a real easy decision for me to make because I’ve jumped in a pool without water before and it’s a hard hit at the bottom.”

When asked if he was financially comfortable enough to give up his multiple media gigs, Huckabee said it was a big issue.

Read the full story here.

TREASURES FROM A GREAT LEADER
Biography pulls together a collection of photos from the life of the late Nelson Mandela. Go to this link to review.

WANT A SUCCESSFUL TWEET?
OK, what is it then?

A new report from TrackMaven analyzing 1,423 Twitter accounts and well over a million tweets was released this week, showing exactly what makes a successful tweet – that is, a tweet that is re-posted by a lot followers. Here’s what the data say:

Want to know? Go to this link from Fast Company.