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Toyota recalls 340K pickups for belt problem

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GM CEO Dan Akerson's top 9 leadership lessons

Daniel Akerson, electrical engineer and finance man by training, Naval officer by decree, executive by design, and, since 2010, General Motors CEO almost by default.Akerson, 64, spent years atop telecommunications and technical companies, as well as running a big private investment fund, and he believes those are the places he absorbed the management lessons he's taken to GM.The most important:"Fundamentally, no kidding, it's all about leadership. I don't think you have to be a subject-matter expert," he said in an interview with USA TODAY. "Complex organizations have many common challenges."Akerson took the top job at GM three years ago next month, and on his watch, the once-wrecked automaker has bloomed. Outsiders aren't sure how much of that is Akerson's direct doing and how much is a combination of a recovering economy and an array of good products, designed before he got there and launched while he's been chief.He was greeted in Detroit by a raspberry. "Not a car guy," was the derisive verdict. In fact, "Who is this guy," was the louder chant.Fortunate, then, that leadership skills are portable."Leadership skills can carry you from equities management to corporate jobs. Leadership is transferable," says Alan Merten, president emeritus of George Mason University, author and expert on leadership and management. Akerson is "a good example of someone who took his knowledge and leadership skills with him wherever he went," according to Merten. It seems so. With the unknown "not-a-car- guy" driving, GM has begun to field impressive products and has a remarkable suite of top executives.And not least, the automaker is reporting record profits."So, here we are four years out of bankruptcy and we've made $25 billion (before taxes and interest). I think that's more than the company's ever made in a four-year period," Akerson said.It takes three or four years to…
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Rieder: Boston Globe sale a sign of the Times

Talk about your ultimate conflict of interest.John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, is buying The Boston Globe from the New York Times Co.There are few bigger stories in sports-crazed Boston than the Sox, and news outlets generally do a terrible job when they have to cover themselves. Now New England's top newspaper and the team its readers love so passionately will be owned by the same person. Let's hope Henry is disciplined enough to let his new acquisition cover his older one the right way.One thing is sure: Readers and media observers will be paying close attention.STORY: Red Sox owner enters $70M deal for Boston Globe[1]Brain McGrory, the paper's editor, assures us there's nothing to worry about. "We have no plans whatsoever to change our Red Sox coverage specifically, or our sports coverage in general, nor will we be asked," McGrory was quoted as saying in the Globe's story on the sale. "The Globe's sports reporting and commentary is the gold standard in the industry."The issue isn't in entirely new, since the Times Co. used to have a minority interest in the team. But that's a far cry from being the principal owner. Rem Rieder is a media columnist for USA TODAY.(Photo: USA TODAY)The transaction, announced early Saturday morning, is a vivid reminder of the staggering decline of the newspaper business in the digital era. Twenty years ago, the Times Co. bought theGlobe for $1.1 billion. The price tag just two decades later: a bargain-basement $70 million.The deal also includes another Massachusetts newspaper, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and the Globe's digital operations, as well as a 49% interest in Metro Daily, a free paper.Selling the Globe fits in nicely with the Times Co.'s strategy for the future. In recent years it has been shedding its other…
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GE posts small gain in profit, sees U.S. pickup

GE reports a small gain in profit in the second quarter.(Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP)Story HighlightsGE earned $3.13B up from $3.11B a year earlier. Revenue fell 4% but still beat estimatesGE says U.S. showed "strong growth," emerging markets remained strong and Europe has stabilizedRevenue slipped at GE power and water division which sells wind turbines and water treatment techSHARECONNECTEMAILMORENEW YORK (AP) — An improving outlook for the U.S. economy and signs of stabilization in Europe sent General Electric shares to their highest level since 2008 despite modest quarterly results."Orders in the U.S. were the strongest in some time," CEO Jeff Immelt said on a conference call with investors following the release of the company's second-quarter results Friday.Immelt said the U.S. economic environment remained "mixed," but his outlook marked an improvement from recent quarters, when he expressed more caution about the U.S. market.GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., has a broad view of the global economy because it sells a wide variety of industrial equipment and appliances around the world, including jet engines, medical diagnostic equipment, oil and gas drilling equipment and washing machines.GE's net income rose 6% in the first half of the year, and the improved outlook raised hopes of even better growth in the second half.GE shares rose $1.09, or 4.6%, to $24.72 by midday. They went as high as $24.95, the highest intraday level since September of 2008, when the shares were in the midst of a plunge brought on by the financial crisis.The recovery in GE shares is not quite complete — shares would have to rise another 15% to reach the roughly $30 per share they were trading at before the financial crisis hit.But the improvement in the company's share price represents confidence in the company's transformation to a more focused industrial conglomerate. GE is dramatically shrinking…
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Homebuilder confidence and sales outlook soar

Homebuilder confidence and outlook for the homebuilding industry jumped in July as demand for homes goes up and fewer houses are on the market.(Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN AFP/Getty Images)Story HighlightsBuilder sentiment index jumped to 57 in JuneConfidence index points to continued improvement for new home constructionDemand for homes and lack of houses on market has driven up demand for home constructionSHARE 131 CONNECTEMAILMOREU.S. homebuilders are feeling more optimistic about their home sales prospects than they have in more than seven years, a trend that suggests home construction will accelerate in coming months.The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Tuesday jumped to 57 this month from 51 in June. It was the third consecutive monthly gain.A reading above 50 indicates more builders view sales conditions as good, rather than poor. The index hasn't been that high since January 2006, well before the housing market crashed.Measures of customer traffic, current sales conditions and builders' outlook for single-family home sales over the next six months vaulted to their highest levels in at least seven years."Builders are seeing more motivated buyers coming through their doors as the inventory of existing homes for sale continues to tighten," said David Crowe, the NAHB's chief economist.The latest confidence index, based on responses from 281 builders, points to continued improvement for new home construction, which remains a key source of growth for the economy.Last month, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cited housing gains as a major reason the Fed's economic outlook has brightened.Steady hiring and low mortgage rates have encouraged more people to buy homes over the past year. But the inventory of previously occupied homes on the market has declined sharply in many markets. On a national level, it was down 10% in May from prior-year levels as sales rose to an annual…
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On the Job: Listen to find right tools to persuade

She may be "only" the receptionist -- like Jenna Fischer's Pam Beesly Halpert in "The Office" -- but she can be very influential, so don't make the mistake of writing her off.(Photo: Chris Haston, NBC)Story HighlightsPut yourself in the other person's shoes: What kind of pitch would that person like?Tailor your information, style of communicating to your audienceTo get your way, show how that way can benefit the person you're talking toSHARECONNECTEMAILMORERemember the first time you heard about Twitter?At the time, you may have scoffed and said you could care less about what someone ate for lunch. But years later, with 400 million monthly visitors, the social network that uses 140-character tweets shows that millions of people obviously feel differently.COLUMN: How to persuade potential clients[1]Millions of people follow famous personalities or celebrities on Twitter to see what they think. Not content with that information, they also may regularly check Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites to stay abreast of what co-workers are doing or what industry leaders are saying. That drive to know what others are saying or tweeting provides important lessons for those who want to be more influential, says Kurt W. Mortensen, author of Maximum Influence."Social validation boosts your influence," he says. "People will always believe someone else before they believe you. We think that if someone likes you or your product, then it must be good."That means recommendations on LinkedIn or "likes" on Facebook can boost your influence, as can your ability to tailor your persuasion skills to individuals, he says."Probably one of the biggest mistakes we make in trying to influence others is trying to persuade them in the way we like to be persuaded — and not the way they like to be persuaded," he says. "Most of us only have three or four…
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