Search results for ""Author Juan Gonzalez""

How Bill de Blasio's mayoral victory triggered a seismic shift in the nation's urban political landscapeand what it portends for our cities in the futureIn November 2013, a little-known progressive stunned the elite of New York City by capturing the mayoralty by a landslide. Bill de Blasio''s promise to end the Tale of Two Cities had struck a chord among ordinary residents still struggling to recover from the Great Recession. De Blasio''s election heralded the advent of the most progressive New York City government in generations. Not since the legendary Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s had so many populist candidates captured government office at the same time. Gotham, in other words, had been suddenly reclaimed in the name of its people. How did this happen? De Blasio''s victory, journalist legend Juan González argues, was not just a routine change of government but a popular rebellion against corporate-friendly policies that had dominated New Yor

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The vision of perfectionism as a multidimensional variable has gained weight in scientific evidence as social functioning sets more rigorous performance standards of an individual or group differentiation in any field (e.g., academic, sports, work, social, religious...). There is a need to establish how we achieve the goals we set ourselves in any field of action, thanks mainly to the creation of valid and reliable instruments to measure it. In today's societies, there is an increasing emphasis on how to respond to the demands of the environment as quickly as possible, being effective and achieving the best results. The demands of the environment make it possible to stimulate contextually (if they are seen as traits) and to construct perfectionist patterns and attitudes (if they are understood as learned cognitions or behaviours), which are usually associated with agonising feelings of devaluation, incapacity or psychological vulnerability. Perfectionists are characterized by setting their goals too high as they are always on a quest to do things perfectly. In cases where they cannot do something perfectly, they do not even try, or they live with significant suffering that floods their lives, causing feelings of dissatisfaction and affecting their self-esteem, mainly because their attention is reduced to focusing only on the end of the tasks they perform, leaving the development of the task in the background. People who seek to do things perfectly are rigid when it comes to carrying them out, causing difficulty in adapting to changes, and preventing them from enjoying the present moment or taking advantage of their mistakes to improve themselves. In the same way, we can say that they reject reality, or at least they are reluctant to experience it in a way that is very different from the way they shape it. It is impossible to make everything perfect, as all people make mistakes, but perfectionists conceive failure as an expression of their maladjustment and for this reason, they generate high levels of anxiety, becoming people who try to control everything around them.

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One of the worst recessions for the past 100 years, businesses failing, a revolution in technology, increasing financial constraints, compliance stifling the ability to be nimble, changing consumer behaviour, and a market driving products towards commoditization - this is the perfect storm facing the banking industry. Disruption provides a critical understanding of the impact of the current economic crisis and the current industrial revolution on financial services, the new trends in the sector, and the opportunities for banks to leverage their unique assets and pre-empt challengers from gaining meaningful market share. The book also provides top-level advice about transforming financial services organizations by finding the right balance between short-term requirements and the imperative of long-term change. This balancing act is what the authors call the "ambidextrous approach", which requires focus on two strategic initiatives: performance and innovation.

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