Keep your superstars happy

People with rare expertise and skills have become powerful — be they corporate executives, research scientists, money managers, artists, athletes or celebrities. But top talent isn’t solely or even highly motivated by compensation. Feeling special is far more important to them. You must treat stars like valued individuals, not like members of a group — even an elite one. To do that, respect these three “never-dos”: 1) Never dismiss their ideas. Webex made this mistake; it gave no traction to a proposal for a phone-friendly platform made by star exec Eric Yuan, who got frustrated and left to start megarival Zoom. 2) Never block their development. Enabling stars to keep growing will win their loyalty. But if they feel their way forward has been barred, they’ll take their skills to an organisation they think will clear a path for them. 3) Never pass up the chance to praise them. Extraordinary people spend all their time doing hard things. If they don’t get recognition, they will drift away or become resentful.

(Adapted from “The Real Secret to Retaining Talent,” by Roger L. Martin, published by the Harvard Business Review)

Welcoming a bear market for crypto

Crypto assets may be experiencing another “winter” — and that’s a good thing, according to crypto billionaire Vitalik Buterin. The 28-year old co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain says the digital-asset universe may actually benefit from the current retreat, because cooling coin prices can help build more viable projects. “When there are these long periods of prices moving up by huge amounts like it does — it does obviously make a lot of people happy — but it does also tend to invite a lot of very short-term speculative attention,” he says. “The winters are the time when a lot of those applications fall away and you can see which projects are actually long-term sustainable.” Cryptocurrency prices have tumbled since reaching record highs in early November as investors and speculators anticipate a reduction of the massive amounts of stimulus added to economies and global markets in the wake of the Covid pandemic.

(Adapted from “Ethereum Founder Buterin Says Crypto ‘Welcomes’ Another Winter,” by Muyao Shen & Matthew Hill, published on February 19, 2022, by BloombergQuint)

Covid’s impact on PSX

A paper examines the impact of coronavirus on the exchange rate (EXU) and stock market uncertainty (SMU) in Pakistan while controlling for the effects of interest rate and policy interventions by the government and central bank to combat the pandemic. It’s findings indicated a shock to total daily coronavirus cases in Pakistan has a positive and significant impact on both the EXU and SMU. However, this impact is short-lived which may be attributed to a timely policy response and risk-averse nature of investors in Pakistan. Strong policy responses from the key macroeconomic institutions/offices may explain why the impact of Covid-19 on exchange rate and stock market uncertainty in Pakistan is not very strong and as prolonged as it could have been otherwise.

(Adapted from “The Impact Of Covid-19 On Stock Market And Exchange Change Rate Uncertainty In Pakistan,” by Ateeb Akhter Shah, Kaneez Fatima and Mannan Zaheer, published in 2021 by IBA Business Review)

‘Shame on Harvard’

Harvard University’s students and faculty participated in a “No Justice” walkout in support of three graduate students who are suing the university for its handling of sexual harassment allegations against John Comaroff, an anthropology professor. Protesters carried signs, including one that read “Shame on Harvard.” The graduate students have accused the university of ignoring allegations that Mr Comaroff has sexually harassed students for years and of allowing him to intimidate students by threatening their academic careers if they reported him. The controversy surrounding Mr Comaroff has divided the faculty. Initially, 38 Harvard professors signed an open letter defending the character of a colleague, a copy of which was published in The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. But most reversed themselves, issuing a new letter titled “We Retract.”

(Adapted from “Colleagues Who Backed Harvard Professor Retract Support Amid Harassment Claims,” by Michael Levenson and Anemona Hartocollis, published on February 9, 2022, by The New York Times)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, January 28th, 2022