Teresa, the vice president of customer support at an insurance company, canceled her monthly town hall meeting just before the holidays last year. She believed that staff would appreciate the extra hour because they were rushing to meet their year-end goals. Her decision was logical. But it backfired. One of her …
“I can’t wait to get to my hotel and tell you about the latest office drama,” my friend said. “I would have called you sooner, but my boss was with me in the cab.” “Before you tell me the drama, I have a question for you,” I said. “Do you …
Talking to Strangers is about how our assumptions on strangers are usually wrong. The book details how the highly-trained CIA officers can’t spot double agents and diplomats can’t understand their opponents. Judges who see the defendants are worse at spotting recidivism than computer algorithms. We are awful at understanding strangers, …
Following the epidemic and the widespread adoption of the work-from-anywhere policy, 65 percent of employees say they feel less connected to their coworkers. Disconnected employees are a significant reason for resignations costing U.S. businesses up to $406 billion each year. According to research, lonely workers had decreased productivity, a higher chance of attrition, …
It’s been 50 minutes since the start of the hour-long meeting. The last item on the agenda has been settled, and we’ll likely be done early. Others may rejoice at this change of events, but I shudder, waiting for the inevitable line: “I’m going to give you back 10 minutes …
You don’t learn to read as a child without failing. Nobody accuses you of being bad reader now because you were constantly falling at it when you were a child. It’s no secret that we all fail and that pain forces us to evolve into getting better. Adult mistakes are …
As the workplace changes swiftly in the aftermath of the pandemic, social change, and other factors, one essential issue stays: How can we assure that we’re improving work for individuals, companies, and society? Over the last year, there have been many research-based articles that address that subject. With the year …
The pandemic thrust leaders to carry a significant emotional load. For nearly two years, aiding teams in recovering from the pandemic’s grief and loss, bolstering their employees’ declining mental health, being sensitive to people’s anxieties, and often publicly sharing their vulnerabilities along the way. They’ve been Counselor-in-Chief. Of course, excellent …
You have a brilliant idea for a product improvement that will save your business money, a process that will boost your team’s productivity, or a strategy to avoid an impending disaster. There’s only one problem: you don’t know how to approach your boss about it, or you’ve tried and failed …
Teammates complained that a fellow employee was closed-minded. So I told her that I’d been hearing she wasn’t open to new ideas. She looked sad and deflated. She defensively started rattling off all the new ideas she implemented. She knew better than anyone about what was going on inside her …
