Nearly half of new job openings from 2010 through 2020 will be middle-skills positions in fields such as computer technology, nursing, and high-skill manufacturing. They require postsecondary technical education and training, and they're increasingly hard to fill. As federal funding for job training declines, Kochan, Finegold, and Osterman urge companies to take the lead in closing the middle-skills gap. Getting there, they argue, will require local business leaders to work with one another, educational institutions, and in some cases, unions. Available models include apprenticeship programs, such as those spearheaded by the Center for Energy Workforce Development; partnerships like those between Kaiser Permanente and its employee unions; sector-based regional initiatives, such as Boston-based SkillWorks; and collaborations with higher-education consortia that embrace strong ties to industry. Effective collaborative training programs involve employers in designing and funding the initiatives and in finding jobs for graduates. They integrate classroom education with opportunities to apply new skills in actual or simulated work settings. And they start graduates down a clear career path. These best practices, with leadership from the private sector, should be the cornerstones of a national job-training strategy.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Corporate boards in the United States have recently been on the hot seat. Stimulated by high-profile scandals, investor dissatisfaction with board performance and questions about the level of executive compensation, regulators have introduced significant reforms in the rules that govern boards. But will such reforms actually contribute to the effectiveness of boards? A real danger exists that the mandated changes not only will fail to enhance how companies are governed but also could possibly lead to a number of negative unintended consequences. To investigate such issues, the authors conducted a study that compared the board practices and effectiveness of Fortune 1000 companies in 1998 vs. 2003. They looked specifically at three areas: board leadership, the conditions governing board membership, and the performance evaluations of boards, individual board members, and CEOs. The results have helped to determine which practices in those three areas are actually related to overall board performance.

Rare is the company that does not periodically review the performance of its staff, business units, and suppliers. But rare, as well, is the company that does such a review of one of its most important contributors--its board of directors. Done properly, appraisals can help boards become more effective by clarifying individual and collective responsibilities. They can help improve the working relationship between a company's board and its senior management. They can help ensure a healthy balance of power between the board and the CEO. And, once in place, an appraisal process is difficult to dismantle, making it harder for a new CEO to dominate a board or avoid being held accountable for poor performance. The authors, Jay Conger, David Finegold, and Edward E. Lawler, III, all of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California's School of Business Administration in Los Angeles, have drawn on the strengths of several different approaches to synthesize a best-practice process that is both rigorous and comprehensive.