Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age
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Category: Learning (Page 15 of 25)
According to an article published on the McKinsey Quarterly, new research suggests that the secret to developing effective leaders is to encourage four types of behavior:
- Be supportive;
- Operate with strong results orientation;
- Seek different perspectives;
- Solve problems effectively.
Discover more here!
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Does the work environment matter? Such a question tends to be underestimated: we usually evaluate our job on how difficult and complicated the subjects we deal with are. But our relations with colleagues and the human perspective of our job are not less important.
Christine Porath’s quiz looks like a useful instrument to understand how human relations can influence productivity and wellness. You can try it here and find out the quality of your work environment.
This quiz sheds light on what Porath is not afraid to define incivility: “Mean bosses could have killed my father”, she says in another article, referring to her father’s employers.
It is also important for what it doesn’t explain. Once you find out what doesn’t work, it is essential to search for a way to improve your professional life quality. And here is the problem: human dynamics are very difficult to generalize, you can’t look for a general method when it comes to a mix of psychology and ethics. Nonetheless two tips should be kept in mind to survive in a bad environment.
First of all, learn by experience: other people’s bad behavior could strengthen our ability in managing stress and pressure and eventually help us find the right equilibrium between professional and personal life. We cannot choose our bosses, but we can somehow learn from the bad ones too: they show directly what should not be done.
Secondly, if you are strong enough not to give up, it is essential to improve the environment as much as possible. Other people’s lack of civility is not an excuse to behave similarly. Kindness and respect may not pay in the short run, but they can produce change in time. Without forgetting, of course, that there are limits, also legal, that we cannot allow to be crossed.
Image: Pixabay (CC0)
Do you have the self belief and confidence to make a difference? Do you “just know” that you’ll succeed no matter what? Do you know what motivates and gets you going? And do you know how to tap into the motivations of other people?
In Personal Confidence & Motivation written by Sean McPheat (Founder and Managing Director of management development specialists, MTD Training) you’ll find the answers to all of these questions and much more besides. You’ll understand how to build your own confidence levels and how to generate confidence in an instant. You’ll then move to the topic of motivation and you’ll be able to really understand this area of personal development.
Image Source: Flickr – Run On Beat by Run on Beat
In our daily routine we are unceasingly exposed to facts and events that can easily draw our attention away from tasks which are essential for being efficient and fully productive at work.
Effective scheduling can help us prioritizing and preventing unfruitful struggles to cope with the demands placed upon us.
Geoffrey Whiteway on Coaching Positive Performance lists eight tips that – if daily implemented – can help us scheduling:
- Plan the night before: making plan the night before, will ensure you less anxiety and better night sleep.
- Select 1 key task: identify the most important task for each day and get that task completed.
- Key task first: Life is unpredictable and if somethings happens that plays havoc with your plans, getting the most important task done first will increase the probability for your day to still be effective.
- Context based lists: If you have more than 20 tasks to be completed, make a list and put specific tasks under headings based on the situation you find yourself in, or the resources available to you at the time.
- No agenda, no meeting. Avoid meetings which do not have a clear agenda, as they tend to be just “talking shops”.
- Establish rituals. Routines allow you to get important, repeated tasks completed with maximum efficiency and minimum thought.
- Only time specific tasks go in your calendar. Tasks without a deadline risk being continuously put off.
- Projects vs. tasks A task is something which needs to get done but has not been done yet. A project is something which needs to be done, but has not been done yet and will take more one task to get done. There is real benefit in thinking this way and breaking each project down into tasks.
Image source: Flickr – photosteve101
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
True loyalty originates from kindness, not from fear!
Indeed, according to Daniel Goleman, one of Linkedin’s most appreciated INfluencer and author of “A Force for Good”, if you want a loyal team, you must choose kindness over toughness.
Discover more here!
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Image source: Flickr Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig
Would you give away your home keys to some random stranger? I bet not. Curiously enough, when it comes to internet personal security, people usually lower their guard, thus giving possibility to malwares, Trojans or identity thieves to have access to private data. Justin Schuh, one of the top Google’s information security engineers, here explains in five simple tips how to sensibly reduce risk of infection while surfing on the internet.
Because, as Jodi Rell once stated: “at the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security”
Image source: Bykst (CC0 1.0)
Mary Marshall argues that leadership is a natural talent nourished by experience and practice. Leaders do not just “manage” human resources; they inspire people and motivate them to act because they passionately believe in something. And this cannot be learnt or taught in school.
Read more: “Can Leadership Be Learned?”.
Image source: Flickr – cybrarian77 (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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