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THINK Week in Review: The Jimi Hendrix Edition

Forty nine years ago, Jimi Hendrix dropped out as the opening act for teenybopper sensations The Monkees. Weird combinations and pairings can work sometimes, but often they are just too weird to digest. We continue to provide you with the most interesting stories of the week, sometimes hard to digest but always intriguing: How banks learned to stop worrying and love the Blockchain, Bitcoin's underlying tech. While cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin arguably still search for their killer applications, their core algorithms might turn out to be pretty useful to the financial institutions they were once in line to disrupt. "Sometimes people ask me, is Blockchain a friend or foe, and to me, why would I think of that as a foe?" says BNY Mellon's chief information officer. "It's another piece of technology that could help us and our clients and remove friction from the system." Is your credit union about to embark on a digital transformation journey? These are the seven questions they need to ask in advance. "Transforming an organization is difficult, and the research proves it. But it is still worth doing. Forrester's assessment is that by 2020 every business will become either predator or prey. As a leader, you likely already know the basics of managing change, but a digital transformation goes deeper, and thus makes different demands on you, your team, and your organization. In return, however, you have the opportunity to invest in the most profitable and valuable business models the market has seen." Poorer than their parents? A new perspective on income inequality. An alarming statement: "If the low economic growth of the past decade continues, the proportion of households in income segments with flat or falling incomes could rise as high as 70 to 80 percent over the next decade. Even if economic growth accelerates, the issue will not go away: the proportion of households affected would decrease, to between about 10 to 20 percent – but that share could double if the growth is accompanied by a rapid uptake of workplace automation." You can change who you are. "People are much more complex than a personality test can show. Everyone has the capacity to "be a Buddha one minute and a jackass three minutes later." You are not either ‘nice’ or ‘mean’ permanently. You have the capacity for both, and a choice you may not have been aware of. It takes energy and awareness to realize the choice to be whom you choose. But, as the science of psychology continues to demonstrate, it is possible. You can either continue to be who you are, or you can overcome the aspects of yourself you do not like by changing the way you view yourself and the world. It is a road full of setbacks and difficulties. But the goal is progress, not perfection." Are you a slow decider? You might be a better strategist. "The essential lesson for competitive-strategy decision makers is not so fast, in both senses of the phrase: take your time and don't be so sure."

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