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On Monday, President Donald Trump kicked off a week of addressing jobs in this country with moves including pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, reaching out to U.S. auto CEOs, and promising to wipe out at least 75 percent of government regulations that hinder their businesses.

But is he focusing his efforts in the right areas to make the biggest impact to America’s workforce?

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman and author of Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, a field guide on globalization and politics, argues that the president’s strong-arm tactics is not the answer.

While promoting his book in London, Friedman penned an op-ed for the Times and appeared on BBC highlighting what smart approaches Trump and others in Washington should be focused on.

In the article, Friedman quotes Gidi Grinstein, president of Israel’s Reut Institute, who explains, “Trump wants to protect jobs. What we really need is to protect workers.”

Friedman goes on to suggest that “the best way you help workers is by ensuring that they are flexible — that they have the skills, safety nets, health care and lifelong learning opportunities to make those leaps and that they live in cities open to innovation, entrepreneurship and high-I.Q. risk-takers.”

On BBC, Friedman argues that Trump’s response to the rapid changes in America’s workforce are dated and how his strategy “to build walls, to keep these whirlwinds out, rather than really focus on how we empower citizens and companies to live within the wind,” won’t work long-term.

Click here to read his full piece.

Watch a portion from his BBC interview below.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.