A World Economic Forum White Paper emphasises that competitiveness in the new economy relies heavily on investment in people; technological investment alone will not deliver resilience or productivity gains. While AI and digital skills are important, the non-technical human-centric skills, including creative and analytical thinking, motivation, adaptability, and empathy,y are the core capabilities required to […]
Psychological tools are proving to be very effective in helping people in the workplace gain the right frame of mind in challenging situations. Imagine that you are about to enter a room where you will make a presentation in front of a powerful client. Appearing diffident or unsure would be the worst impression you could […]
Job satisfaction is often linked to the quality of the working relationship between an employee and his or her supervisor. A poor relationship can lead to an increase in turnover intention — the desire or intent to leave — and eventually turnover itself: the employee quitting the job, sometimes even in the absence of a […]
Traditional leadership development focuses on adding more information, skills and competencies to a leader’s toolkit. Thus the leader might learn new ways to develop staff, for example, or new methodologies for communicating more effectively. Vertical development, according to CCL’s Nick Petrie, takes a radically different approach. The goal of vertical development is not to add […]
Best-self activation is the deliberate effort to think the best of yourself. You can do this in one of two ways: 1) reflecting on situations in your history that show you at your best (e.g. highlighting your most impressive attributes), or 2) receiving stories and feedback from others that show you at your best. The […]
Succession planning is a vital issue for corporations. As CEOs leave, the smoother transitions occur when a successor or a short list of successors has been groomed and is prepared to step into the position. Since it is the board of directors’ responsibility to replace a departing CEO, one would expect that they would be […]
Based on a survey of nearly 200 North American CEOs, board directors and senior executives, Stanford’s 2013 Executive Coaching Survey revealed that nearly 2/3 of the CEOs were ‘going it alone’ — without valuable outside advice or coaching. Asked whether they would be receptive to making changes based on feedback, 100% of the CEOs said […]
Why do so many people make New Year’s resolutions? Because the New Year is the most obvious and universal of temporal landmarks — the dates or periods in time that mark a meaningful transition or change. Anything from a birthday or an anniversary to the first day on a new job or even in a […]
Everybody dreams. Phantasmagoric ‘night journeys’ are part of life. It’s estimated that by the age of 60 most of us will have dreamed 197,100 dreams over 87,000 hours. The reasons why we dream, however, remain unclear. Oneirology, the study of dreams, has failed to produce a consensus. Some people argue that dreams are random firings […]
Fear of death is a core part of the human condition. It’s been associated with everything from the enduring appeal of religion and spiritual beliefs to the desire to reproduce and raise children. It remains, however, largely ignored in management literature and mainstream motivational theories. Death is a powerful ‘stealth motivator’ that leads to defensive […]
