January 2008 to April 2011 was a shocking time for France Telecom, when more than 60 employees committed suicide — a large number leaving behind notes blaming stress and misery at work. Though initially labelled isolated incidents, the company eventually took note of the increasing problem and initiated measures ranging from suggestion boxes to opening […]
Read More… from Three Strategies for Resolving Workplace Conflict
Would you seek help from someone who has rejected you in the past? Most people are hesitant to ask for favours the first time around, let alone ask someone that has already refused one. However, according to a study led by Stanford University’s Daniel Newark, we often overestimate the chance that our requests will be […]
Read More… from Once Bitten, Twice Shy? Past Refusal and Future Acceptance
Music transforms experience … from the humdrum, the everyday, into something else … Music is used in theater, it is used in movies, it is used to ratify revolutions … Other experiences transform our lives, but none so universally … [Music is] one of the most important of man’s activities, and one gauge of […]
Group coaching is known to help break down barriers to communication, build trust and solve specific and practical problems in organizations. An interpersonal learning process, it can create the impetus for change. Its effects can be explained by psychology and psychodynamics. Good coaches use the ‘clinical paradigm’ as a conceptual framework for group sessions. They recognise […]
Imagine a cellist, taking on different roles depending on whether he/she is playing with a quartet, a chamber orchestra, or a full orchestra. Today’s leaders are not dissimilar; they come together in different arrangements to undertake most of an organization’s decision-making. These groups of leaders, or ‘ensembles’, debate changes in their company’s direction, or draw […]
Read More… from Leadership Ensembles: 4 Blueprints for Senior Decision-Making
Social status relates to the prestige, esteem and respect that managers and employees receive from their colleagues, subordinates and superiors. While in society, social status can be attained through wealth in addition to power, social status in the business world is often a function of hierarchy. Executives and managers will benefit from a higher social […]
Read More… from Social Status, Performance and Managing Stress
Without tools and processes, the quality of thinking from even the most diverse team is likely to match that of the loudest person in the room. Unless people are taught how to integrate there will be no additional value to having opposing views and no integration across views. Why is leveraging diversity so hard? When […]
Read More… from Leveraging Diversity through Integrative Thinking
A growing number of studies in both the field and the laboratory demonstrate that people are imperfect co-operators — they tend to co-operate only if others do so, and a significant minority don’t co-operate at all. This pattern of behaviour causes unstable co-operation levels and often results in the disappearance of positive collective action over […]
Read More… from Co-operative Behaviour: Neuroscience Insights
What can statistics and data-based analyses reveal to us about meetings that are effective (leading to consensus and decision-making) and efficient (goals achieved in optimal time)? Because the science of meetings is still in its early stages, the raw data for study is still being accumulated. However, two researchers from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, […]
Based on interviews with more than 50 employees across 12 companies, as well as questionnaire data from more than 200 employees London Business School’s professor, Julian Birkinshaw, along with his fellow researchers, say that management should be about “seeing the world through the eyes of the employee.” In other words, it is a manager’s job […]
