Forbes: An Office Full Of Fear -- The Worst Boss Method

By SIMON CONSTABLE

[Part 16 of a continuing series on how you too can become an appalling manager.]

When employees are anxious or even scared they do their jobs badly or sometimes not at all. They mentally cower. You might find that they just stare blankly at their computer screens for hours on end or that they make many stupid mistakes.

As a potential “worst boss possible” you need to cultivate that environment of terror in the workplace.

How do you do that without running afoul of the increasingly politically correct workplace? It’s tricky, but doable. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting the job done.

U.S. News: Those So-Called Boring Stocks Are Pretty Exciting

By SIMON CONSTABLE

With summer just around the corner, it's easy to yearn for a trip to the beach and perhaps a ride on the roller coaster, like the famed Cyclone at Brooklyn's Coney Island. Whatever else it may be, the Cyclone will certainly give riders a thrill. If that floats your boat, then go for it. But what you shouldn't do is to seek out such thrills from investing.

Many people do, and it's a mistake. There are better, less stressful alternatives. Read more here.

TheStreet: Millennial Educators: Add Finance Classes for Elementary School Kids

By SIMON CONSTABLE

So much for the reputation of millennials being slackers. 

Teachers who were born between 1980 and 2000 are far more likely than their older peers to want financial literacy education added to the elementary school curriculum. 

It's not by a small margin either, with 62% of the younger group advocating the change, versus 51% of non-millennials. The older group tends to believe such education should be conducted primarily at home. Read more here.

pixabay free images, CC BY-SA 4.0, 

via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: The Three Questions Bad Managers Ask Themselves Each Day

By SIMON CONSTABLE

At business school, our professors taught us that we’d be much more likely to achieve our goals if every day we just did something small towards meeting them.

It was as simple as asking yourself the same question every day: “What one thing can I do to inch myself closer to where I want to be?” If you keep asking that and then doing something in that vein, then eventually you’ll get there. That’s the theory and pretty much the practice.

The same is true for candidates to be the “world’s worst boss.” To make this easier for you I have developed three questions for you to ask yourself at the beginning of each workday. Read more here.

Photo by Jordan Bebek on Unsplash

Forbes: A Change Plan You Can Believe In

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A lot people and companies say they want to change, but then it quickly becomes clear that they don’t want to do anything different to make that change happen. That factor is at the root of a lot of personal and business problems.

Maybe you get stuck in a career you don’t like. Maybe you see the changes that are disrupting your industry, but you get stuck as opportunities dwindle. This happened to people who worked in book stores as Amazon revolutionized the way readers purchase books. When brick-and-mortar retailers finally wised up, it was too late. That’s business!

But for people, it is never too late to change. The only real issue is that to break free of the old and find something new requires an approach that you likely haven’t tried previously. Read more here.

Barron's: It’s Time to Pump Up Your Oil Exposure

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The price of crude oil tumbled to a low of $26 a barrel in February from more than $100 in mid-2014. The spot price of West Texas Intermediate crude settled at $37.26 on Thursday.

Some worry that oil prices could fall again, if heavy production continues in the U.S., Canada, and Kurdish-controlled Iraq and a weak world economy reduces demand. But when all of the risks are weighed, it’s hard not to draw the opposite conclusion: It’s far more likely that crude supplies will tighten, driving prices higher. Investors could play the trend by buying crude-oil futures or shares of the United States Oil exchange-traded fund (ticker: USO), which tracks crude prices. Read more here.

U.S. News: Say Goodbye to Utilities Stocks as We Know Them

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Watch out! Those "safe" utility stocks that you might be relying on for juicy dividends likely won't be so reliable forever. 

The heavily regulated industry is ripe for technological disruption in the same way that the music business, the news media and book publishing were upended over the last couple of decades. As with all disruption, there will be winners and losers. 

The change could be great for consumers, but investors need to be aware of how it might alter the relative attractiveness of different types of stocks. Read more here.