“Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”
Category: Management (Page 1 of 24)
Ancient philosophers can teach business leaders how to help employees live better and reach eudaimonia.
The article “What can business leaders learn from ancient Greek philosophers?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/business-learn-from-ancient-philosophers) describes some techniques used by ancient philosophers which can help achieve the “good life”:
- Dare to disagree (Socrates)
- Let people seek fulfillment (Aristotle)
- Be a good role model (Plutarch)
- Build a resilient mid-set (Epictetus)
- Keep track of your ethical progress (Rufus)
- The art of happiness (Epicurus)
Leaders are often described as powerful and headstrong individuals, certain of their position and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals or ambitions.
Recent researches have advanced a new model for understanding and improving effective leadership: leading with humility. Scientific inquiry has shown that humility offers a significant “competitive advantage” to leaders.
Humble leaders consider their own strengths, weakness and motives in making decisions; demonstrating concern for the common good, and exercising their influence for the benefit of all.
Managers who exhibit traits of humility resulted in better employee engagement and job performance.
In this article, Gwen Moran explains how to use humility to be more effective in the following 6 ways:
1) Be open to others’ opinions;
2) Tend to others’ needs;
3) Admit mistakes;
4) Accept ambiguity;
5) Self – reflect;
6) Let people do their jobs.
Image source: Flickr – (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Tom Simpson
“It is not the strongest or most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” – Charles Darwin
Soft skills represent the habits that can improve how you work with others and how they work with you. This article published on Forbes, sheds light on 7 important skills that will help you create a positive partnership with your colleagues.
- Adaptability: One must be ready to apply flexibility when dealing with critical situations.
- Teachability: Embrace criticism and be ready to proactively acting upon it, we always have something new to learn.
- Punctuality: Simple but crucial.
- Communication: This soft skill is a two-way street, it goes both ways. Make your messages clear and actively listen to what others might say
- Service Mindset: Try and care for the people around you both coworkers and customers
- Proactivity: Use creative thinking to develop to prevent a reactive approach to work. Don’t always passively wait for new tasks.
- Ownership: Embrace responsibility.
Image source: Pixabay
Whether you are trying to stay healthy, save money, or you feel as if you are simply too busy to take the full hour, having lunch at work is often a struggle.
However, no matter what job you do, a filling and nutritious lunch has a multitude of benefits, positively affecting your mood and your productivity in the process. To help you make the most of your midday mealtime, this article provides five useful tips for the perfect working lunch:
- Be realistic: It can be tempting to order an oversized lunch, however, more often than not, your large lunch just proves a hindrance to your productivity, and your concentration starts to flag. This usually happens at around 3 o’clock, just as you are about to go into an unnecessarily long meeting.
- Double up/buddy up/get social: While it is perfectly normal to seek some solitude with your sandwich every once in a while, lunch is one of those things that is almost always better when enjoyed with someone else. Although there may be mitigating circumstances always try and avoid being the canteen recluse.
- Mark your territory: If you work in a large office and one which has a communal refrigerator, there’s always the chance that your lunch will go missing. If this happens more than once, it may be time to take evasive action: write a post-it note and stick it to your Tupperware.
- Go outside: Lunch at your desk often involves browsing Amazon and watching videos of cats on YouTube. Scientists have proved that dining at your desk can actually be detrimental to your health, not to mention your productivity. Instead of indulging in the daily picnic by your PC, why not go outside and have a real one? Even a simple walk through the park can break up the day, making you more alert and ready to work by the time you go back.
- Variety: Even the most habitual of us enjoy a change from time to time, so try and vary your diet. Lunch is a great way to counter a daily routine which is otherwise hard to change, so take full advantage where you can. It could turn out to be the most important meal of the day.
Image Source: Pixabay – Wir_Sind_Klein
In any moment of the year there are usually many “Office Parties” going on for the more various reasons, being it birthdays, farewells or holidays celebrations. Though they are called “parties,” employees often dread these events and only go because they feel obligated. Sure, the free booze and pizza is nice, but they would rather be at home watching Netflix than spending more time with their boss and colleagues during after-work hours.
However, if parties do turn out to be awesome, and employees enjoy them, they can increase worker satisfaction and morale, strengthen relationships between colleagues, and instil a sense of employee pride in your company.
This article provides some tips to ensure your upcoming workplace gathering is going to be amazing:
- Keep timing in mind: The timing of your party is crucial. For example, why does it have to take place right when people are rushing to get their projects wrapped up before the end of the calendar year? If December is your busiest time of year, maybe do something the first week of January, so it is truly a celebration and everyone can enjoy it.
- Figure out a theme: Take your workplace values and culture and use them to assign a fun theme to your party. Themes work better when there is an optional dress code attached and the whole party (food, drinks and decorations) embodies the theme and the overall idea.
- Follow the trends: You need to follow the trends in parties occurring right now. Try to include also what makes your staff sincerely happy. Usually, interactive food stations with creative cocktails and alchemists at the bar are all the rage.
- Encourage socializing: Try to create an atmosphere that lets people ease into conversations. Try to organize the food and drinks stations in order to help people socializing. Adding alcohol to a party can welcome more socializing and loosen up interactions among employees, but it’s important to maintain a harassment-free environment. The National Federation of Independent Business suggests reminding people that they should stick to your company’s code of conduct in all your messages leading up to the party.
- Make it fun: Hiring performers that mingle among the crowd rather than perform in one place usually works better. Try also to organize games and activities in order to favour more the conversation and interaction among people.
Image Source: Pixabay – DariuszSankowski
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: Pixabay (CC0)
Telling your boss that they are wrong is never easy. Most employees will not consider it, fearing professional suicide. However, not being able to face issues, speak truth, and learn has dire consequences. Wrong is a part of life and business, and (most importantly) the key to improvement.
The most successful CEO’s actively seek out staff who will stick their necks out and have hard conversations. Delivering the message is always tricky. It is important to deliver criticism in a way that will be heard, understood, and appreciated.
This article provides five tips in order to better confront your boss:
- Accentuate the positive: When delivering bad news, try always to finish with a positive spin. The positives, as well as the negatives, provide the complete picture. A balanced, constructive view does not focus on “what’s right and what’s wrong,” but instead tells us “what to do more of, what to stop doing, and what to do differently.”
- Use “I” statements: The “I” statements offer your perspective. There are different versions of the truth, and “I” statements leave room for discussion, interpretation, and alignment.
- Focus on common ground: When addressing a problem, remind your boss of the goals with a particular action or decision. Ground your discussion in shared objectives, and always make your case with good data.
- Ask questions: Before you point out problems, make sure you are likely right. Seek to understand the total situation. Opening a dialogue and asking useful questions may help bosses see that they are wrong before you even need to say it. If and when you do decide to deliver bad news, leave room for discussion; “Am I wrong on this?”
- Offer solutions: If you have an opinion, you have a responsibility. Even if the boss was solely responsible for a bad decision, everyone must help the company address the issue and move forward.
Image Source: Pixabay – Geralt
“How can I get a little more time every day so that I can get things done on a daily basis?” This is not only the case for our private lives but also in terms of the strategic goals defined at work. Most organizations make an effort of increasing productivity through effective planning. However, effective planning is a concept known for being hard to grasp, and it can be a challenge to figure out where to start.
This Article provides five useful tips for a more effective planning:
- Plan Far into the Future: By creating a plan for many months into the future, you avoid the daily hurdles of finding out what is the most appropriate project to engage in. By doing this, it is easier to see the bigger picture and which small projects will get you closer to the general goals.
- Involve Everyone in the Planning: The planning processes are comprehensive and involve scheduling activities, delegating responsibilities and continuous coordination. Are these carried out by a few people in the organization, and much is spend unnecessarily.
- Use An Intuitive Tool for Effective Planning: To ensure that employees are motivated to use a digital tool, the solution should be intuitive. Keep in mind that everyone should be able to use it, and therefore, it is important that you have access to tutorials and descriptions about the features.
- All Activities in One Structure: This tip is related to the previous one and involves an important feature of the just mentioned digital solution. At a glance, the tool should be able to give you a comprehensible view of the plans for the year, and this is a precondition for the planning to be truly effective. When it isn’t possible instantly to get a full view, it can be challenging to get the bigger picture.
- Automation: The last tip has to do with the time being saved by automating processes. This could, for instance, happen by arranging emails for customers or marketing campaigns to be sent out automatically. Another example is to use a tool that allows you to set up notifications to be sent out to colleagues prior to events.
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