Are Your Communication Strategies Really Engaging Employees?

The frequency at which the word “engagement” appears in any discussion about employee communication has begun to make me wonder whether we clearly understand what the term means. As communicators we have the opportunity to become creative in how we communicate and engage employees. The ultimate aim in employee communication has to be to create the “Aha!” moment. This is the moment when employees have … [ Read more ]

Culture Beat: Diagnosing Your Organizational Culture

If you ask a lot of employees about their organization’s culture, chances are you will get various answers that aren’t exactly precise. One friend described his office environment as insular and isolationist. Another said his company’s culture was “grateful, like Thanksgiving.”

Fortunately, there is a way of formally diagnosing corporate culture so that we can map our organization’s key characteristics to its mission and goals, and … [ Read more ]

Don’t Mention It: How ‘Undiscussables’ Can Undermine an Organization

Recent high-profile scandals at Penn State, MF Global Holdings, Olympus and elsewhere raise questions about why organizations often fail to address significant internal problems that at best impede performance, and at worst could have devastating effects. In hindsight, especially to observers, it is clear what should have been done. But for employees, exposing such problems is more complicated than telling right from wrong, say experts … [ Read more ]

Jason Fried

You know how you can tell when you’ve made a good decision? If you feel like you waited too long to make it, then it’s a good decision.

One Way to Lose Employees: Train Them

Workers with new skills will leave if they don’t see a career path ahead.

Inspiring Loyalty by Asking, “What If?”

“What if” is a powerful and emotional question. People often fantasize about how they would handle a tough situation if they got a second chance. At the other extreme, individuals may undergo a life change when someone they care about survives a near-calamity. They ponder, What if he or she had died?
Such counterfactual reflection, as it is called, can elicit intense feelings. People who imagine … [ Read more ]

Competitive Advantage from Better Interactions

Tacit interactions are becoming central to economic activity. Making those who undertake them more effective isn’t like tweaking a production line.

Sheena Iyengar on the Power of Choice – and Why It Doesn’t Always Bring Us What We Want

In March 2010, Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia Business School, published a book titled, The Art of Choosing. Iyengar, who is blind, says the book reflects her interest in how people make choices, including how they are able to navigate both the opportunities and responsibilities that an abundance of choice can bring. In a video presentation, Iyengar offers Knowledge@Wharton viewers her perspectives on the … [ Read more ]

The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator

When evaluating compensation issues, economists often assume that both an employer and an employee make rational, albeit self-interested choices while working toward a goal. The problem, says Assistant Professor Ian Larkin, is that the most powerful workplace motivator is our natural tendency to measure our own performance against the performance of others.

Horrible Boss Workarounds

Bad bosses are generally more inept than evil, and often aren’t purposefully bad, says Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. She discusses common bad-boss behaviors, and how good colleagues can mobilize to overcome the roadblocks.

Leading Change in Turbulent Times

Fundamental change is painful. The intellectual and logistical challenges may be daunting, but the emotional confusion and chaos created during such change can virtually paralyze an organization. In today’s turbulent environment, however, change is not optional. Farsighted leaders endeavor to use times like these to sprint past their less nimble competitors. In order to capitalize on potential new opportunities, such leaders are able to harness … [ Read more ]

A.G. Lafley

P&G used to recruit for values, brains, accomplishment, and leadership. We still look for these qualities, but we also look for agility and flexibility. We believe the “soft” skills of emotional intelligence — fundamental social skills such as self-awareness, self-fulfillment, and empathy — are needed to complement the traditional IQ skills.

Confucius

The nature of people is always the same; it is their habits that separate them.

How To Spark Innovation And Creativity In The Workplace

or over a decade, Marcus Buckingham has been on a quest to help you hone in on your key strengths in an effort to boost your performance in whatever realm you function. It started with an assessment tool called Strengthsfinder, developed while Buckingham was at Gallup. It continued with bestselling books First, Break All The Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, followed by a string … [ Read more ]

Gender and Competition: What Companies Need to Know

Do women shy away from competition and thus hurt their careers? New research by Harvard’s Kathleen L. McGinn, Iris Bohnet, and Pinar Fletcher suggests the answer is not black and white, and that employers need to understand the “genderness” of their work.

Alison Maitland

A good way to start a conversation about whether a corporate culture is inclusive is to ask, “What would your daughter think about working here?” or, “Do you think your daughter—or niece or granddaughter—would find it easy to make as successful a career here as you have?”

9 Reasons People Don’t Do What They Are Supposed To Do

Ever noticed that people don’t always do what they are supposed to do?

Whether you recently hired new employees for the first time or have lengthy experience in leading teams comprised of full-time, permanent staff plus contract workers, you may encounter situations in which people don’t do what they’ve been asked to do. Here are common scenarios and suggested fixes.

How Small Wins Unleash Creativity

In their new book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, authors Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer discuss how even seemingly small steps forward on a project can make huge differences in employees’ emotional and intellectual well-being. Amabile talks about the main findings of the book. Plus: book excerpt.

James Krohe Jr.

a repository is no better than the questions asked of it, and people tend to seek only information that they perceive is relevant to them, because their notions of relevance are limited by their lack of information—the so-called relevance paradox. This doesn’t matter much, however, if people don’t ask questions in the first place. Left to themselves, people prefer to exploit the unofficial KM systems … [ Read more ]