Every business will go through rough times, and communicating and relating effectively with your staff will spell the difference between having a cohesive team working with you or a disorganized, demoralized team that will add to your problems.

A manufacturing plant in Kentucky had repeatedly been cited for safety violations. After each citation, some corrections were made, but the underlying causes were never dealt with. Conditions improved for a while, but then management allowed its safety standards to slip again, and more violations occurred. The result was an explosion that injured 28 workers.

Martha Retallick grew up in Pennsylvania. She attended college at the University of Michigan, earning a bachelor's degree in economics in 1979. After college, she started an editorial job with a nonprofit organization but was laid off within a year.

Our email in boxes fill up with unwanted commercial solicitations-some of them smutty and vulgar-and we shout, "Somebody do something!"

Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan have paid $324 million to settle claims accusing them of helping Enron perpetrate a fraud against investors and the American public. Claims are still pending against Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Canadian Imperial.