CHAPTER 8
Strategic Writing Topics
Introduction
This final chapter provides you with an opportunity to write three separate six-page memos on very different topics. The first topic examines the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as identified by the United Nations (UN) in 2015. The second topic considers the top 10 issues confronting businesses today due to constant technological advancements. And the third topic highlights 10 dynamics, other than your college major, that factor into your ability to achieve and sustain income growth throughout your career.
Each of the three topics provides you with a variety of ideas from which you can choose. Follow the outline as provided in this book, keeping track of your two-week timeline and utilizing the grading rubric to ensure that you write a six-page memo that is clear, concise, and compelling. Here are three examples of potential topics—one from each section.
Topic #1: Sustainable Development Goals: Zero Hunger—you write a six-page memo to the mayor of Philadelphia on the goal of ending hunger in the three poorest zip codes in the city. You clearly articulate the one strategy you want to implement and detail the various tactics involved with achieving your goal within your timeline.
Topic #2: Top 10 Business Issues: Recruiting the Right Talent—your six-page memo to the CEO of the company of your choice. You outline a new strategy and related tactics for the company to recruit, retain, and develop individuals who have a history, English, or other liberal arts degree.
Topic #3: Focusing Illusion and Your College Major—your six-page memo is written for the membership of a group of professionals under 30 years of age. Your goal is to have people engage in subtle maneuvers. Doing so allows them to have multiple revenue streams. You provide one clear strategy and a series of tactics the members can employ to achieve the goal.
Review the strategic writing outlines associated with each topic for an example of a goal-strategy-tactic to use for a six-page memo.
Topic #1: The Sustainable Development Goals
The UN created the 17 SDGs in 2015. Write a six-page memo identifying a solution to one of the following SDGs as identified by the UN. The goals are broad and somewhat interdependent, yet each has a separate list of targets to achieve.1
Goal 1: No Poverty: Extreme poverty has been cut by more than half since 1990. Still, more than one in five people live on less than the target figure of US$1.25 per day. That target may not be adequate for human subsistence, however. It may be necessary to raise the poverty line figure to as high as $5 per day.
Goal 2: Zero Hunger: States that by 2030 we should end hunger and all forms of malnutrition. This would be accomplished by doubling agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers (especially women and indigenous peoples) by ensuring sustainable food production systems, and by progressively improving land and soil quality.
Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being for People: Reduce the worldwide under-five mortality rate. Between 2000 and 2016, the worldwide under-five mortality rate decreased by 47 percent (from 78 deaths per 1,000 live births to 41 deaths per 1,000 live births). Still, the number of children dying under age five is extremely high: 5.6 million in 2016 alone.
Goal 4: Quality Education: Major progress has been made in access to education, specifically at the primary school level, for both boys and girls. Still, at least 22 million children in 43 countries will miss out on pre-primary education unless the rate of progress doubles.
Goal 5: Gender Equality: Providing women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will nurture sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.
Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation: Worldwide, six out of ten people lack safely managed sanitation services, and three out of ten lack safely managed water services. Safe drinking water and hygienic toilets protect people from disease and enable societies to be more productive economically.
Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy: As of 2017, only 57 percent of the global population relies primarily on clean fuels and technology, falling short of the 95 percent target.
Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth: Achieving higher productivity will require diversification and upgraded technology along with innovation, entrepreneurship, and the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Some targets are for 2030; others are for 2020.
Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure: Manufacturing is a major source of employment. In 2016, the least developed countries had less “manufacturing value added per capita.” The figure for Europe and North America amounted to US $4,621, compared to about $100 in the least developed countries. The manufacturing of high products contributes 80 percent to the total manufacturing output in industrialized economies but barely 10 percent in the least developed countries.
Goal 10: Reducing Inequalities: One target is to reduce the cost of exporting goods from least developed countries. “Duty-free treatment” has expanded. As of 2015, 65 percent of products coming from the least developed countries were duty-free, as compared to 41 percent in 2005.
Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: The number of people living in slums went from 792 million in 2000 to an estimated 880 million in 2014. Movement from rural to urban areas has accelerated as the population has grown and better housing alternatives are available.
Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production: By 2030, national recycling rates should increase, as measured in tons of material recycled. Further, companies should adopt sustainable practices and publish sustainability reports.
Goal 13: Climate Action: In May 2015, a report concluded that only a very ambitious climate deal in Paris in 2015 could enable countries to reach the sustainable development goals and targets. The report also states that tackling climate change will only be possible if the SDGs are met. Further, economic development and climate change are inextricably linked, particularly around poverty, gender equality, and energy.
Goal 14: Life below Water: Oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth’s surface. A scary 30 percent of marine habitats have been completely destroyed, and 30 percent of the world’s fish stocks are overexploited. Marine pollution has reached shocking levels; 15 tons of plastic are released into the oceans each minute, and 20 percent of all coral reefs have been destroyed irreversibly, with another 24 percent in immediate risk of collapse.
Goal 15: Life on Land: Articulates targets for preserving biodiversity of forest, desert, and mountain eco-systems, as a percentage of total land mass. Achieving a “land degradation-neutral world” can be reached by restoring degraded forests and land lost to drought and flood. This goal calls for more attention to preventing invasion of alien species and more protection of endangered wildlife.
Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions: Reducing violent crime, sex trafficking, forced labor, and child abuse are clear global goals. The international community values peace and justice and calls for stronger judicial systems that will enforce laws and work toward a more peaceful and just society.
Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals: This goal is included to assure that countries and organizations cooperate instead of only competing with each other. Developing multi-stakeholder partnerships to share knowledge, expertise, technology, and financial support is seen as critical to overall success of the SDGs. Public-private partnerships that involve civil societies are specifically prioritized.2
Strategic Writing Outline—UN Sustainable Development Goals
What follows is one potential example of the many you can create using the SDGs identified by the UN.
Issue: Zero Hunger: Goal 2 states that by 2030 we should end hunger and all forms of malnutrition. This would be accomplished by doubling agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers (especially women and indigenous peoples), by ensuring sustainable food production systems, and by progressively improving land and soil quality.
Goal: Set up a food pantry at a local university. (NOTE: your goal of ending hunger on a campus is also a tactic for the strategy of ending hunger in the United States that supports ending hunger across the globe—UN goal).
Strategy: Get the support of the university president.
Tactics: (1) Contact the president directly; (2) Have students sign a petition and send that to the president; (3) Get a local food distributor to cosponsor the petition.
Your six-page memo would then detail the reasons behind the issue, an explanation of the strategy, and a thorough accounting of how you would implement each of the three tactics involved.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Explanation of Strategy
Page 3: Tactic 1
Page 4: Tactic 2
Page 5: Tactic 3
Page 6: Conclusion
Topic #2: Top 10 Business Issues
Issue #1: Uncertainty about the future: Get comfortable with uncertainty as it will be a constant in your future regardless of what industry, market, or region your business operates. As John Boitnott said in his Inc. Magazine article, “There’s just no way to completely prepare for the future of your business. All you can do is stay up to date on current trends, forge quality relationships and above all, never assume.”3
Issue #2: Financial management: The uncertainty about the future impacts all aspects of a business, especially financial managers. Researcher Livia Ilie noted in Challenges for Financial Managers in a Changing Economic Environment: “Changes in the macroeconomic environment have an impact on how businesses operate and in consequence there are changes in strategies and priorities and in the way departments have to adapt. The more complex the economic system, the more complex the businesses, the more complex the interaction between economic players in a global economy, and the more uncertainties one has to face in this turbulent times, the more complex the role of financial managers.”4
Issue #3: Monitoring performance: Using a meaningful set of rounded performance indicators that provide the business with insights about how well each employee is performing is key. What is often missing from this evaluation, however, is the part about making sure that the employee is doing the right thing. After all, you may have a very hardworking and dedicated team member, but if he or she is not working on things that advance the organization’s purpose, what is the point? This is where key performance indicators come into play, and they apply both at the organizational and individual levels. At an organizational level, a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a quantifiable metric that reflects how well an organization is achieving its stated goals and objectives.
Issue #4: Regulation and compliance: Businesses face more compliance regulations with each passing day. Technological advancements in various industries will continue to play a pivotal role in businesses’ operations and their customers’ behavior. With that in mind, businesses would do well to stay abreast of compliance regulations pertinent to technology issues, as these regulations will inevitably impact their day-to-day operations and their overall strategy. Financial institutions and health-care providers, in particular, have to deal with various regulations, and it goes without saying that complying with these regulations requires an expenditure of time and resources.
Issue #5: Competencies and recruiting the right talent: According to McKinsey, “one-third of senior leaders cite finding talent as their most significant managerial challenge.”5 A McKinsey Global Institute study suggests that employers in Europe and North America will require 16 million to 18 million more college-educated workers in 2020 than are going to be available. Companies may not be able to fill one in ten of roles they need, much less fill them with top talent. Yet, in advanced economies, up to 95 million workers could lack the skills required for employment. Developing economies will face a shortfall of 45 million workers with secondary-school educations and vocational training.6
Issue #6: Technology: Prior to the 1990s, and before the Internet, firms understood at least the basics of their competitors’ business models, because most companies operated in a similar way. With disruptive technological innovations being introduced on a frequent basis during the last two decades, firms are introducing new business models all the time. What’s more, technology seems to be changing every minute. That’s why it’s crucial for managers and leaders to stay on top of industry trends and remain open and adaptable to change.
Issue #7: Exploding data: While many business leaders suggest that answers to their most important questions can be found in data, the reality is data kills. As Nader Mikhail wrote in Fortune: “It kills projects, it kills money, and it kills time. Twenty-five years ago, data was growing at a rate of 100 GB a day. Now, data grows at a rate of almost 50,000 GB a second. And as the volume of data grows, the ability of companies to make sense of it diminishes, confounding rather than illuminating strategic decisions.”7 The hyper-connectivity of the world in which we find ourselves strains our most valuable resource—time. The thousands of messages we receive via text, social media, or e-mail each day distract us, decrease productivity, and create barriers to productive decision making.
Issue #8: Customer service: Customer service is critical in every industry. Take banking for example. More than three-fourths of executives say that the customer experience has improved at banks, while two-thirds of consumers say that they have seen no change. It will take a fundamental change in culture and language to bridge this gap. Ritz-Carlton’s motto, “We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen,” is legendary, but what’s even more admirable is how the Ritz-Carlton experience fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of guests. As Deloitte put it in the latest Banking Industry Outlook, “Long-term sustainable growth in the banking industry seems only possible with a radical departure from a sales-and product-obsessed mind-set to one of genuine customer centricity.”8
Issue #9: Maintaining reputation: According to a study published in the European Journal of Marketing, “Consumer-to-consumer opinions tend to be perceived as more credible, influential and objective than company-sponsored messages, which means they are playing a critical role in marketing practice.” With that in mind, one strategic imperative for organizations today is to monitor their online reputation every day. Doing so can also help the organization engage with customers to immediately address any issues published online. Such attention to customer concerns can often help maintain the desired reputation.
Issue #10: Knowing when to embrace change: Change is inevitable and adapting to change remains a strategic imperative for any individual or organization that wants to remain relevant. Far too often, companies wait too long to adapt, letting their brand go stale. To prevent that from happening, CoverGirl changed its “Easy, Breezy, Beautiful” slogan by introducing “I am what I make up” as its new, more inclusive tagline. It was the company’s biggest reinvention in decades. As Katie Jansen noted in Forbes, “CoverGirl realized that makeup has grown into a tool of self-expression, so it recently repositioned” itself as it adapts to the changing marketplace to remain relevant.
Strategic Writing Outline—Business Issues
The following is one potential example of the many you can create using the Top 10 Business Issues:
Issue: Maintaining reputation: One strategic imperative for organizations today is to monitor their online reputation. Doing so can also help the organization engage with customers to immediately address any issues. Such attention to customer concerns can maintain the desired reputation.
Goal: Help colleges improve their online reputations.
Strategy: Create the #student2student campaign that allows students from the university to answer questions, resolve issues, or find solutions before they escalate online.
Tactics: (1) Get the university to accept participation in the #student2student campaign as internship credit; (2) recruit, train, and monitor students who are interacting with others to resolve disputes online; and (3) identify a faculty or staff mentor to provide oversight.
Your six-page memo would then detail the reasons behind the issue, an explanation of the strategy, and a thorough accounting of how you would implement each of the three tactics involved.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Explanation of Strategy
Page 3: Tactic 1
Page 4: Tactic 2
Page 5: Tactic 3
Page 6: Conclusion
Topic #3: The Focusing Illusion and Your College Major
The focusing illusion is also known as the focusing effect and is a cognitive bias that occurs when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event, causing an error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome. In his 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow, the 2002 Nobel Prize recipient in Economics, Daniel Kahneman, discussed his concept of the focusing illusion and defined it as meaning “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”
To identify the focusing illusion you have to think hard. Since people “are not accustomed to thinking hard, they are often content to trust a plausible judgment that quickly comes to mind.”9 He applied the focusing illusion to education and wrote, “Education is an important determinant of income—one of the most important—but it is less important than most people think.”
Perhaps, nowhere is the focusing illusion more apparent than in the discussion between one’s college major and future earnings income potential. Evidence suggests that there is little correlation between one’s level of education or academic major and long-term income potential.
“In one recent survey over 90 percent of employers agree that a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major.”
Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas concluded that, “Perceptions of the variations in economic success among graduates in different majors are exaggerated. Our results imply that given a student’s ability, achievement and effort, his or her earnings do not vary all that greatly with the choice of undergraduate major.”
Focusing solely on education prevents the consideration of the myriad of other factors that determine income. When you fall into the focusing illusion trap, you believe that one degree is better to have than another. When you realize “that nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it,” you then have a powerful tool in your arsenal of strategic thinking tools.
1. Understand the impact of geography: Where you live plays an important role in your ability to have a sustained career. For example, current research strongly suggests that looking for work in large urban areas can give workers a better chance to find a job that fits their skills. Additionally, in terms of salary and long-term career earnings, where you live often matters more than what you have on your résumé. Upon analyzing two decades of data from more than 200 cities, Rebecca Diamond, an assistant professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that college graduates are increasingly clustering in more expensive cities that offer more amenities such as restaurants and cultural attractions, better parks, less crime, and less pollution. To help recent college graduates identify key geographical locations, top 10 lists of cities to launch a career are now commonplace.10
2. Realize the power of grit: It would be extremely difficult to have a long and successful career without the ability to persevere through difficult situations. Numerous researchers have concluded that getting to the corner office, having long-term earnings potential, and climbing up the corporate ladder all have more to do with grit than graduating with a specific degree. Living a life of leadership, purpose, and service also requires grit. Grit is by far the most important characteristic one needs to demonstrate time and again in order to translate the vision they have for their life into reality. MacArthur Fellow Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, defines grit as the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals and what equips individuals to pursue especially challenging aims over years and even decades. Duckworth noted that people who “accomplished great things often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take.”11
3. Market your value: In my book Marketing Your Value: 9 Steps to Navigate Your Career, I explain that college students and more experienced professionals as well need to work hard at helping employers understand their value. Doing so requires substantial work, if you want to stand out among other job candidates. It is also important to understand that “being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation, and cheap genius.”12 You need to define yourself and what you are looking for in terms of employment. Give people a reason to pay attention to you. This is important to do in person as well as online. The only people who stand out are those who want to.
4. Demonstrate your level of preparedness: All too often, recent college graduates make the mistake of assuming that their degree is synonymous with career preparedness. The research suggests otherwise. In one study, nearly 70 percent of corporate recruiters said that their company has a hard time managing its younger generation of workers who were perceived as lacking in a work ethic, unwilling to pay their dues, and simply harder to retain.13 Over one-third of business leaders and recruiters give recent graduates a “C” or lower for job preparedness.14 A recent survey of U.K. companies found that only 1 in 3 employers (23%) believe that academic institutions are adequately preparing students for vacancies in their organizations.
5. Recognize the dynamics of compensation: Focusing solely on your salary in and of itself demonstrates a severe lack of professional maturity. In his 1967 publication The Motivation to Work, Frederick Herzberg identified two different categories of factors affecting the motivation to work: hygiene and motivation. Hygiene factors include extrinsic factors such as technical supervision, interpersonal relations, physical working conditions, salary, company policies and administrative practices, benefits, and job security. In comparison, motivation factors include intrinsic factors such as achievement, recognition and status, responsibility, challenging work, and advancement in the organization. Herzberg’s theory postulates that only motivation factors have the potential for increasing job satisfaction. The results indicate that the association between salary and job satisfaction is very weak. When employees are focused on external rewards, the effects of intrinsic motives on engagement are significantly diminished. This means that employees who are intrinsically motivated are more engaged than employees who are extrinsically motivated by money.
6. Appreciate the journey: Demanding that college students figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives is a flawed mental trap that contributes to anxiety, loneliness, and depression. It is also completely unnecessary and a fool’s errand. Such thinking exposes logic that believes a successful career can be determined by an exact formula and be neatly quantifiable. This is simply untrue. Achievement on either the personal or professional levels seldom follows a simple formula: “Life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.”15 As John Gardner said in his famous “Personal Renewal” speech delivered to McKinsey & Company in Phoenix, Arizona on November 10, 1990: “Life is. . .an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own capacities for learning and the life situations in which we find ourselves.”16 Your dream job today may not exist tomorrow, let alone 5, 10, or 20 years from now. You’ve got to be open to whatever industry change comes your way.
7. Grow personally to develop professionally: In today’s challenging global economy, “individuals are under unprecedented pressure to develop their own abilities more highly than ever before, quite apart anything their employers may or may not do to develop them.”17 Personal discipline, growth, and a commitment to lifelong development are critical elements that factor into one’s ability to achieve and sustain growth over a long career. In The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, authors Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn) and Ben Casnocha realize that great people, like great organizations, are in a state of perpetual growth. “They’re never finished and never fully developed.” Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, and grow more. This state of “permanent beta as a lifelong commitment to continuous personal growth” is a necessity for everyone regardless of what you have majored in.
8. Continue to evolve in your 20s: In Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and Jennifer Lynn Tanner declare that the decade after college graduation is a time for self-discovery. Many parents fail to realize that it takes time for their son or daughter to discover the right career path, get married, or become financially independent. New research suggests that people are better equipped to make major life decisions in their late twenties than earlier in the decade. The brain, once thought to be fully grown after puberty, is still evolving into its adult shape well into a person’s third decade, pruning away unused connections and strengthening those that remain. Postponing major decisions makes sense biologically. “It’s a good thing that the 20s are becoming a time for self-discovery.” “It should be reassuring for parents to know that it’s very typical in the 20s not to know what you’re going to do and change your mind and seem very unstable in your life.”18
9. Know that the reality is that people change jobs: Your first job following graduation will very likely not be your last. Layoffs, quitting, and a host of other reasons explain why people move from one job to another. In 2011, 48,242,000 people changed jobs in the United States. Of those who changed jobs, 20 million were from layoffs and discharges, 23 million workers quit, and 4 million were classified as other separations.19 With 131 million total workers, the 48 million people who changed jobs represented 36.7 percent of the total working population. Also, it is impossible to know what you want to do with the rest of your life at 22, when you have no idea what new jobs will exist in a decade or two. When today’s youth graduate, they will have jobs that have not yet been created using technology, jobs that have not yet been invented to solve a problem that has not yet been identified.
10. Engage in subtle maneuvers: Graduates need to engage in subtle maneuvers so they can purpose interests other than their day job. For those who cry they have limited time, recall the words of Franz Kafka: “Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible, then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”20 During the day Kafka worked his brotberuf, literally “bread job,” a job done only to pay the bills, at an insurance company and then he would pursue his passion of writing at night and during the weekend. This subtle maneuver approach has been utilized by many successful people. An aspiring author once wrote to Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, asking for advice on how to have a successful career as a writer. In his response, Wilde told him not to rely on earning a living from writing and declared “the best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread.”21
This view on college majors requires one to think differently and outside the normal thought process. To think differently, one will need to challenge the status quo and be ready to confront mental models that are so ingrained in people that any new idea may seem outrageous at first. A good strategic thinker and writer, however, will be able to persuade people to accept the new idea over time.
Strategic Writing Outline—The Focusing Illusion and Your College Major
The following is one potential example of the many you can create using the issues listed in The Focusing Illusion and Your College Major:
Issue: Engage in Subtle Maneuvers: Graduates need to engage in subtle maneuvers so they can purpose interests other than their day job.
Goal: Empower graduate students to understand the value of having more than one job.
Strategy: Work with my university’s alumni and career development offices and create an online directory of graduates who engaged in subtle maneuvers and had more than one job.
Tactics: (1) Create a survey for alumni to complete about their subtle maneuvers; (2) organize the data by academic major so graduates across each discipline can better understand how alumni from their department had more than one job; and (3) publish the results online in a user friendly format.
Your six-page memo would then detail the reasons behind the issue, an explanation of the strategy, and a thorough accounting of how you would implement each of the three tactics involved.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Explanation of Strategy
Page 3: Tactic 1
Page 4: Tactic 2
Page 5: Tactic 3
Page 6: Conclusion
1Visit https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 for more information.
2For more information visit https://tinyurl.com/UNSDGs2030
3J. Boitnott. no date. “4 Ways to Prepare for Uncertainty in Business,” Inc. https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/4-ways-to-prepare-for-uncertainty-in-business.html accessed September 16, 2018.
4L. Blaga. “Challenges for Financial Managers in a Changing Economic Environment.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567115010540 accessed September 20, 2018.
5S. Keller and M. Meaney. November, 2017. “Attracting and Retaining the Right Talent,” McKinsey Report. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567115010540 accessed September 20, 2018.
6Ibid.
7N. Mikhail. February, 2017. “Why Big Data Kills Businesses,” Forbes. http://fortune.com/2017/02/28/why-big-data-kills-businesses/ accessed August 2, 2018.
8Deloitte. 2018 Banking Industry Outlook. For more information visit https://www2.deloitte.com/cy/en/pages/financial-services/articles/gx-banking-industryoutlook.html accessed September 11, 2018.
9D. Brooks. 2011. “Tools for Thinking.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/opinion/29brooks.html (date accessed January 10, 2018).
10“Top 10 Best Cities for Post Grads,” April 3, 2015, www.rent.com, accessed September 11, 2018.
11P. Tough. September, 2011. “What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?” The New York Times Magazine.
12T. L. Friedman. January, 2012. “Average Is Over,” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/opinion/friedman-average-is-over.html accessed August 4, 2018.
13L. Cunningham. January, 2014. “Wont’ Work Hard? Won’t Pay Their Dues? How Business Leaders See Young Workers,” The Washington Post.
14S. Snider. November, 2011, “Get the Best Return on Investment for Your Liberal Arts Degree,” U.S. News and World Report. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-forcollege/articles/2014/11/19/get-the-best-return-on-investment-for-your-liberal-arts-degree accessed September 16, 2018.
15C. R. Rogers. 1953. “The Good Life and the Fully Functioning Person,” Panarchy.
16https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.html accessed September 11, 2018.
17G. Colvin. 2008. Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (New York, NY: Penguin Books).
18M. Beck. August, 2012 “Delayed Development: 20-Somethings Blame the Brain,” The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443713704577601532208760746a accessed July 24, 2018.
19“Quick stat: 48 million People (37% of the Workforce) Changed Jobs in 2011,” Net Perspectives, March 20, 2012.
20M. Currey. 2013. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf), p. 83.
21N. Khomami. March, 2013. “Literary Success? Don’t Give up the Day Job, Advised Oscar Wilde,” The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9939664/Literary-success-Dont-give-up-the-day-job-advised-Oscar-Wilde.html accessed September 14, 2018.