Support for deal making should be organization-wide.

The internal organization that manages a company’s M&A processes has always been a major contributor to the success of its deals. Today, as companies increasingly choose to manage their M&A processes internally, without the support of financial advisers,1 it’s all the more important to have the right team in place. This team must not only be skilled at screening acquisition targets, conducting due diligence, and integrating acquired businesses but also have the size, structure, and credibility to influence the rest of the company.

Companies must be prepared to tear themselves away from routine thinking and behavior.

Imagine. You lead a large basic-resources business. For the past decade, the global commodities supercycle has fueled volume growth and higher prices, shaping your company’s processes and culture and defining its outlook. Most of the top team cannot remember a time when the business priorities were different. Then one day it dawns on you that the party is over.

Economists have long argued that money doesn’t buy happiness. But compensation is still a major factor for us when we’re considering where to work. What do we know about how more pay influences employees’ motivations?

That slice of information can be the difference between a workforce that is satisfied and productive and one that isn’t — costing the business money in the long run.

Milestone moments do not a year make. Often, it’s the smaller news stories that add up, gradually, to big history. With that in mind, in 2017 TIME History will revisit the entire year of 1967, week by week, as it was reported in the pages of TIME, to see how it all comes together. Catch up on last week’s installment here.

Week 3: Jan. 20, 1967

A cover story about John William Gardner, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), exposed a problem with government good intentions: without logistical support for new ideas, money and legislative will can only go so far. And any delay or mishaps getting off the ground can reflect so badly on a program that the money and will disappear by the time the logistics are ironed out.

Image: http://time.com - Cover Credit: BORIS CHALIAPIN

Last year saw a sharp dip in startup funding in India. According to startup tracker Tracxn, in 2016 investments halved to $3.9 billion from $7.5 billion in 2015. Devaluations, shutdowns and layoffs plagued the sector, and profitability and business model sustainability became the new buzzwords in place of growth and market share. None of this, however, dampened the enthusiasm at the Wharton India Startup Competition (WISC) hosted by the 21st Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF) in Mumbai earlier this month.

You thought the Shark Tank was tough? The second annual BioHealth Capital Region Crab Trap is now accepting applications!

Submit your application for a chance to be named the company with the most commercial potential at the BioHealth Capital Region Forum.

Deadline for entries is March 24 - Finalists will be announced by April 6 - Regional Biotech Forum Event: Panel Presentation is on April 20

Some of the most striking business success stories of the last few years aren't about a new product or idea so much as they are about revamping something well-loved (or at least, well-used) and making it feel exciting again. Pokemon Go might be the most obvious example, but there are many others worth noting.

While technology is eliminating jobs, it is also creating them. But filling these new roles is the next talent challenge.

Much has been made of the potential of recent leaps in technology to automate many jobs out of existence. From taxi drivers to accountants, some studies suggest that as many as half of existing jobs could be automated. Routine work is clearly disappearing, but the fears of mass unemployment at the hands of machines could be overblown.

In a dream Brian Hanley told me about, he’s riding a bus when he meets a man in dark leather clothing. Next thing he knows, he is splayed across a tilted metal bed, being electrocuted.

The dream was no doubt connected to events that took place last June at a plastic surgeon’s office in Davis, California. At Hanley’s request, a doctor had injected into his thighs copies of a gene that Hanley, a PhD microbiologist, had designed and ordered from a research supply company.

These days, few people expect to work for a single company throughout their career. But what about the expectation that companies will remain in one industry forever? Is that, too, becoming an artifact of the past?

In a new PwC report called “The Future of Industries: Bringing Down the Walls,” we look at how the boundaries among sectors are shifting. The pace of technological change is creating at least the prospect of a new industrial order, in which most companies no longer operate within the comfort zones of their established sectors.

If I say “personal electric vehicle,” you might think “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” or maybe “exploding hoverboards.” You don’t think global transportation revolution.

But in the past few years, with the convergence of better battery technology, lighter materials and smaller, more powerful electric motors, entirely new kinds of transportation have bloomed. The electric powertrain, unlike that of the internal combustion engine, scales...

Keep asking the right questions, and you'll be wrong about the future less often than your competitors.

Remember what 1997 was like? How well?

It was Amazon’s first full fiscal year. Microsoft's Windows 97 operating system wasn’t there quite yet, and it soon became Windows 98. The internet bubble was on its way, but we couldn’t see it. Y2K was around the corner, too, but few of us were worried yet. Google? Not for another two years. Many companies were still asking themselves if they really needed a web page, and professionals were deciding whether or not to get an email address.

Congratulations! Your organization has just informed you that you have been appointed to a new interim role, and that if you are successful the actual job will be yours. You immediately experience feelings that are powerful but mixed: Getting this interim role is a meaningful validation of your contributions, talent, and potential, but why the trial period? Couldn’t they have given you the job without it being “interim?” Is the actual job yours to win or yours to lose? Will you get the support you need to succeed?

Gray tepid monotony. Does that describe your organization?

A client of mine recently forwarded to me a short article from the Wall Street Journal with this note: “Seems like there is a blog in here somewhere.” The article, by Steven Pinker of Harvard, Why Things Fall Apart, is about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

My first reaction was to laugh. After all, I write a blog focusing on business management. What does thermodynamics have to do with improving your management skills and your business results? As I read on, I realized my client is right. There is a direct correlation.

Most organizations would be happy to last for centuries, as the Venetian Republic did. From 697 to 1797 AD, Venice’s technological acumen, geographic position, and unconventionality were interlocking advantages that allowed the Most Serene Republic to flourish. But when change comes suddenly, it can turn strengths into weaknesses and sweep away even thousand-year success stories.

Today’s question posed to our angel and venture capital panel was as follows: “Well-known VC Steve Jurvetson said his firm is backing companies in agriculture, robotics, artificial intelligence, and aerospace. Crunchbase suggests that the “hot spots” are augmented and virtual reality, machine learning, and cars. What sectors most interest you and how well-positioned do you see the Volunteer State in that regard”

In a week that saw countless broken umbrellas and end to the Bay Area’s prolonged drought, the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco featured what it always does: set the fertile ground for healthcare and life sciences dealmaking and networking. From the buzz around Vice President Joe Biden’s appearance to talk about the Cancer Moonshot to Illumina’s partnership with IBM Watson Health, there were plenty of headlines generated at the main conference and the satellite events that accompany it. Here were the biggest stories that emerged from them:

Last week’s 35th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco was packed with thousands of healthcare investors, analysts, large multinational healthcare companies, startups, and everything in between.

It was fascinating and enlightening to have private one-on-one time with so many startups, large global healthcare companies, hospital systems, and pharmaceutical companies. As well, it was great to catch up with so many angel, seed, and Series A investors.

Although ‘open innovation’ is the talk of the town in R&D circles, leveraging external sources of innovation remains challenging for most companies. In 2013, researchers Dr. Joel West (Keck Graduate, Institute of Applied Life Sciences) and Dr. Marcel Bogers (University of Southern Denmark) suggested a four-phase model for inbound innovation projects. They emphasized that open innovation needs to go further than just obtaining external ideas. Integration, commercialization and the interaction between the firm and its collaborators are just as important. This post explores the four essential steps towards open innovation success.

Innovate Your State is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and encouraging public participation to fundamentally improve government. Innovate Your State believes that through innovation and collaboration they can find solutions to the governance challenges we all face today.

In order to bridge the gap between innovation and government, Innovate Your State hosted its first online challenge in California using IdeaScale technology. The Fix California Challenge aimed to find innovative ideas to improve government from the state’s citizens. The only requirement given to idea submitters was that their suggestion reinvigorate the state along six guiding principles: transformation, representation, education, accountability, opportunity, and renewal.