Professionals in an organization — technical experts in a service organization, for example — will acquire best practices, solutions, resources, ideas and other knowledge as they develop responses to the needs of their clients. In organizations where professionals work in a single location, the professionals will gather regularly to discuss what they have learned about […]
Read More… from Launch Intentional Communities of Practice in Global Companies
The best students from the best universities and graduate schools will be attracted to the most desirable companies to work for in their industries. At first glance, it would seem that these ‘high-status’ companies would be able to unequivocally benefit from the influx of only the best and the brightest into their workforce. A best-in-class […]
Read More… from Why High-Status Companies that Attract the Best Fail to Keep Them
The factors that bring people together into a collaborative venture are varied. One is proximity and shared goals: people within a department, for example, have more opportunities to work together than people across different departments. Another factor is similarity: people who are similar to each other, either because they have the same or similar age, […]
When in May 2013, software giant SAP announced that it would hire hundreds of people who were diagnosed with autism, the assumption among casual observers might have been that SAP was engaging in a laudable act of social responsibility. However, SAP executives, working with researchers and consultants in the field of autistic individuals in work […]
Read More… from Competitive Advantage through Individuals Outside the Norm
When envy pervades a company — when employees and managers for one reason or another focus more on competing against each other instead of the company’s marketplace competitors — the result is a dysfunctional organization whose effectiveness and efficiency is greatly undermined. For example, various explanations are given for Microsoft’s failure to compete effectively against […]
Read More… from Turn Employee Envy into a Tool for Personal Development
While employees are supposed to share their knowledge with other employees for the benefit of the company, employees will often find a reason to keep that knowledge to themselves. Perhaps they believe that they will lose some status or power; sometimes employees who share knowledge will then be judged or evaluated based on that knowledge; […]
Read More… from Why Employees Hide Their Knowledge and How to Encourage Sharing
Why are some people more open to change and others instinctively resistant to anything that significantly alters the status quo? The key is often in an individual’s basic attitude toward change. Some people will default to an unfavourable, negative attitude toward change that leads to resistance, while others have within them a favourable positive attitude […]
Read More… from What is the Psychology Behind Resistance to Change?
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 […]
Read More… from How Landmarks in Time Help Employees Set Aspirational Goals
Research in the past suggested that specifically working at happiness (what can I do today to be happier?) is counterproductive since it focuses the person on what is making him or her unhappy. New research, however, argues for an opposite effect: focusing on your happiness makes you happier. The researchers found that participants in three […]
Read More… from Happiness at Work: How Daily Reminders Improve Employee Morale
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 […]
Read More… from How Best to Juggle Multiple Conversations at Work
