CEOs tend to be strong in decision-making and the financial elements of their jobs, but weak when it comes to managing their people and developing talent, according to a survey of 160 North American boards of directors and CEOs. Specifically, ‘mentoring skills’ was tied with ‘board engagement’ for first place in CEO weaknesses, followed closely […]
Subject: Performance Management
Ways to Encourage Employees to Help Each Other
In a world of business in which cooperation is often the key to success, many companies overlook the damage that infighting, extreme competition or knowledge hoarding by employees can cause to sales, profits and effectiveness. At the opposite end of the scale are the organizations that encourage and facilitate employee cooperation and generosity. Employees look […]
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How Landmarks in Time Help Employees Set Aspirational Goals
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 […]
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How Best to Juggle Multiple Conversations at Work
Technology that is supposed to make us more productive only seems to have complicated our task. We may be in an important meeting but know that whoever just sent an email is waiting for a response… and waiting impatiently. Is it possible to carry on multiple conversations and still be fully effective? Research shows that […]
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Can Late-Night Smartphone Use Reduce Engagement and Productivity?
In recent years, extensive management research has focused on the need for sufficient sleep in order to perform better in the workplace. It has been consistently highlighted as one of the most important off-work ‘recovery’ activities, necessary for replenishing an individual’s depleted resources during the working day. However, despite the evidence, many workers are still […]
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Can Emotional Intelligence Shape a Team’s Collective Performance?
Research in recent years has consistently shown emotional intelligence (EI) to be a key determinant of performance for leaders and employees. Broadly defined as a set of competencies for identifying, processing and managing emotions, EI has been linked to many individual outcomes, such as job satisfaction and engagement. But what about at the team level […]
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How to Limit Ambiguity of Responsibility and Learn from Failure
The nature and dynamics of today’s organizations are such that failures are almost inevitable; the failure of a new product initiative or the failure of an existing strategy to meet changing organizational demands are common examples. Management and psychology research has focused on highlighting tools and resources designed to help people learn from failures, and […]
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How Reference Points Motivate Us
The use of reference points — for example, a monthly sales quota of 20 sales — is at the heart of reference-dependent behavioural economic theories, the most influential being “prospect theory.” According to prospect theory, an outcome is evaluated based on a reference point. Failure to achieve the reference point (19 sales instead of 20) […]
Back to Leadership Basics: Make Time for Your Team
It sounds so obvious. It is obvious. But far too few managers actually do it. We are talking about the most basic of leadership tasks – spending as much time as possible working closely with their direct reports and other employees for whom they are responsible. By so doing, they will have a far greater […]
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How to Ensure Knowledge Sharing under Pressure
In today’s information age, a key source of effectiveness in organizations is knowledge management, and more specifically knowledge sharing among employees. At the same time, one of the growing challenges faced by today’s employees is the time pressure caused by factors such as widespread corporate staff reductions and increase in job insecurity; struggling to do […]
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