Effective communication among members of a team or organization is key to the success of a group. Fast and direct face-to-face communication would appear to be the ideal method of communication. A study based on police emergency calls, however, reveals the complexities of communication—and why choosing the best modes of communication may not be as […]
Subject: Organizational Effectiveness
Leading Conversations: Productive and Unproductive Voice
Few people in their careers have avoided the scourge of time-consuming, unproductive meetings. For Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School and Tijs Besieux of the consultancy Leadership Footprint, unproductive meetings are a symptom of a broader problem: unproductive conversations. In many ways, the success of organizations hinge on the quality of the conversations within them. […]
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Onboarding AI to Gain Employee Trust and Acceptance
Artificial Intelligence is both appreciated and feared: appreciated for the benefits it offers in terms of speed, accuracy and consistency; feared because many believe those benefits can render many human employees obsolete—a fear summarized in the familiar phrase, “Machines will take our jobs.” Studies show that such fears, leading to employee resistance and suspicion, will […]
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How to Align Conflicting Corporate Strategies to Functions
Corporate strategy rarely offers a clear and unified directive for the company’s functions and business units. Instead, companies often have competing sets of corporate strategies. In a study based on the product development activities of a large food company, researchers from Oregon State University and the University of Auckland demonstrate that strategic alignment challenges can […]
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Unbalanced Relationships Hurt Performance, But Don’t Stick Around
Triadic relationships are common in the workplace. For example, two employees, Sharon and Mark, may share negative feelings about a third employee, Kathy; Kathy, in return, has negative feelings about both Sharon and Mark. An alternative triad involving these individuals is that Sharon and Mark have completely different feelings about Kathy: Sharon is a clear […]
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How More Customer Contact Creates a More Energetic, Motivated and United Workforce
A new study shows how impactful customer contact can be in terms of employee engagement and organizational results. According to the study, contact with customers elicits the feeling in employees that they are working to help others, that their job is not just a task in a vacuum with no connection to the rest of […]
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The World of Work in 2028: The Dilemma of Balancing Big vs. Small, Digital vs. Face-to-Face
New technologies and new attitudes about the role of business in society have rendered obsolete the business models, routines and processes rooted in the industrial world, according to a recent study entitled Work 2028: Trends, Dilemmas and Choices. The study was conducted by the Henley Centre for Leadership at the Henley Business School in collaboration […]
Avoiding Toxic Workers Is More Profitable Than Hiring Superstars
While a great deal of attention has been paid to the performance and cost advantages of hiring superstars, less attention is paid to employees at the other end of the spectrum: toxic workers who undermine the organization’s productivity and incur significant costs regulatory and legal liabilities. New research shows that avoiding toxic workers (or converting […]
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Leadership Humility Is Contagious-Resulting in High Performance
New research demonstrates how leadership humility positively influences the performance of a group or organization. Specifically, the research, based on two laboratory studies and one field study, shows that leadership humility leads to collective humility on the part of the group he or she is leading, which in turn leads to a group focus on […]
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Middle Managers-Walking the Talk Needs Top Management Support
The best middle managers influence and inspire their subordinates to higher levels of performance. Research has shown that the secret to being an inspirational middle manager is behavioural integrity, which can be summarized as ‘walking the talk’. Subordinates become motivated and engaged when they see that the behaviour of managers aligns with what they say. […]
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