Employees report company culture matters - Articles - Employee Benefit News

Employees report company culture matters - Articles - Employee Benefit News

Employee Benefit News

Let’s talk about company culture

By Lydell C. Bridgeford

October 25, 2010

New research suggests that employers have to broaden their gaze on the concept of company culture, making it an instrumental part of their core business strategy.

Many experts agree company culture drives retention, productivity and morale. But benefits professionals will also tell you it is critical in designing and delivering employee benefits that resonate with workers.

Randstad US, a provider of HR and staffing services, recently released survey findings on the core characteristics of a strong company culture and workers’ perceptions on company culture. The survey makes clear that employers can no longer afford to overlook company culture as a key corporate objective.

For example, 35% of employees report company culture has the greatest impact on morale; while 22% believe it has a major effect on productivity and 23% of younger workers, ages 18 to 34, say it plays the biggest role in building job satisfaction. The online survey, conducted in August 2010, represents a national sample of 1,008 adult aged 18 and older.

Top performers

"Companies that will perform well will nurture the factors that make their employees feel happier and engaged at work, more connected to overall results, and more motivated to make a strong contribution," says Dr. Eileen Habelow, Randstad’s senior vice president of organizational development.

"Going forward, companies can’t ignore culture. Rather, it should be addressed as a critical component of their overall business strategy," she adds.

In addition, focusing on company culture in a post-recession environment is a perfect way to rekindle corporate performance. About 60% of workers believe that the recession and a slow economic recovery have had a negative impact on company culture. They admit that layoffs, reduced benefits and wages and low morale have heightened feelings of disengagement from their employers.

Randstad says companies with strong cultures focus on the following: building employee morale through incentive and training programs; clearly defining values through mission and vision statements; putting strong leaders in place that set the tone and empower others; and encouraging better relationships with both employees and customers.

Key elements

In the survey, employee attitudes (69%) and effective management (64%) ranked as the two top elements critical to company culture. Other key elements of company culture include:

• Strong trust relationships (57%)
• Customer focus (55%)
• High accountability standards (50%)
• Commitment to training and development (47%)
• Compensation and reward programs (45%)
• Support for innovation and new ideas (42%)
• Useful resources, technology and tools (41%)
• Emphasis on recruiting and retaining outstanding employees (40%)

Meanwhile, Randstad also cites four categories of company culture, which come from the book "Corporate Cultures: the Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life" written by Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy. The categories include:

All hands on deck culture: Everyone works as a team no matter your title or position, the focus here is working together to get projects done;

Process culture: it's all about data, grids and forms, the culture lacks creativity, but focuses heavily on the procedure and bureaucracy;

Work hard/play hard culture: fun and action are the rule here, employees take pride in work and its quality, but don't miss opportunities to enjoy time with co-workers and;

Tough-guy, macho culture: get the job done is the focus here, feedback and constructive criticism reign and you are expected to know what you are doing with little or no direction.

The survey found that 38% of workers list their current work culture as "all hands on deck," while 18% label their company as having a "process" culture, 16% as a "work hard/play hard" culture and 12% a "tough guy, macho" culture. Only 16% of survey participants note that none of the categories describes their company culture.

The survey findings also reveal differences in the classifications by age and by the size of the employer. For example, 47% of workers aged 55 and older classified their company culture as "all hands on deck."

However, 19% of younger workers describe their culture as "work hard/play hard," while those aged 35 to 54 (21%) are more likely to characterize their company as having a “process” culture, according to the survey.

Other key findings from the Randstad’s "Work Watch" survey include:

• Workers including college graduates (76%), employees at companies with more than 100 employees (72%), and those with a household income of $50,000 or more (69%) find company culture more important than other working adults.
• Fewer workers believe company culture has a significant impact on company reputation (13%), employee turnover (7%) or company communication (5%).
• Workers aged 35 and older are more likely than those who are younger to feel that the economic crisis has negatively affected the culture at their company (64% vs. 49%).
• Majorities of workers across demographic groups – with the one exception of younger workers – believe that the economy has had a negative impact on their working environment.

Access Content Source: http://ebn.benefitnews.com/news/company-culture-2684566-1.html

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

5 Lessons From Outgoing Microsoft Software Architect Ray Ozzie | Fast Company

5 Lessons From Outgoing Microsoft Software Architect Ray Ozzie Fast Company

FastCompany

5 Lessons From Outgoing Microsoft Software Architect Ray Ozzie

BY E.B. Boyd Mon Oct 25, 2010

Five years ago, upon joining Microsoft as chief software architect, Ray Ozzie painted a now-famous "Internet Services Disruption" memo outlining his vision for the future and where the company needed to go. That vision came to fruition in part last week with Microsoft Office 365, which was released just a day after the company announced Ozzie would be leaving. Today, Ozzie released a new memo, called "Dawn of a New Day," his parting gift to the company perhaps, in which he once again paints a vision for the next five years of how technology is going to evolve in the next five years and his thoughts on what Microsoft needs to do to take advantage of the opportunities presenting themselves.

The future Ozzie describes--one of always-on connected devices, where our data and software lives in the cloud--was the topic of much discussion in tech circles today. But for Fast Company readers, the memo’s interest might lie more in how Ozzie goes about envisioning his future--and what they can learn about how to plot powerful strategies for their own companies. Here are some takeaways.

1. Take time to paint a vision of the future

It’s well accepted, of course, that leaders need to step out of the day-to-day, look toward the future, and plot effective long-term strategies. But not all of them sit down and write out what they see--in narrative form, much less, not just a bunch of PowerPoint slides. And when they do take the time to write about the future, they often write about how their company is going to move through the future. Ozzie instead starts with the big picture, the big trends in the industry itself, and then uses that as a mirror to show where Microsoft is doing well--and where it risks falling behind. As the old saying goes, “If your map doesn’t match the actual terrain, it’s not the terrain that’s wrong.”

2. Put past successes “in perspective”

Once a company has done something well, it’s easy to keep doing that thing. In fact, it’s hard to stop doing it, because your company--its structure and incentives--get organized around enabling that successful thing to keep happening. But if the bigger picture in your industry changes, as it is in the tech sector, that successful thing may no longer be optimized to the new environment. Continuing to do it, and not shifting to a product line better suited to the new landscape, will put you at a disadvantage against competitors who do adapt, not to mention new entrants who have designed themselves with the new needs front of mind. In his memo, Ozzie talks about how Microsoft’s historic focus on PCs and software made it great. But he also paints a future in which PCs and software play less of a role. “This will absolutely be a time of great opportunity for those who put past technologies & successes into perspective [emphasis mine],” Ozzie writes, “and envision all the transformational value that can be offered moving forward.”

3. Recognize what’s inevitable in your industry

The flip side of putting past successes in perspective is recognizing what new developments are inevitable. The news industry, for example, spent a lot of time fighting the Web and digital news before finally accepting their inevitability. Think of how much energy would have been saved--and, more, put to better use--had the industry sought to dive into the digital world, rather than fight it. “Let’s mark this five-year milestone by once again fearlessly embracing that which is technologically inevitable,” Ozzie writes, “clearing a path to the extraordinary opportunity that lies ahead for us.”

4. “Inevitable” is not the same as “imminent”

Once you’ve looked the inevitable in the face, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. If the future landscape you see is vastly different than the landscape you originally planned for, it might feel impossible to make the shift. But stay calm. Even changes that are inevitable take time to materialize. That gives you time to plan and shift your strategy in increments. Ozzie says the changes in the tech world will require innovation in the “user experience, interaction model, authentication model, user data & privacy model, policy & management model, programming & application model”--in other words, in just about everything the tech world does. But, he adds, “these platform innovations will happen in small, progressive steps, providing significant opportunity to lead.”

5. Real transformation has to come from within

If you want to make a shift from the old world to the new, the people inside your company have to see it, believe it, and have a passion for it. You can bring in outside consultants to tell you where the future is headed, but if the people inside your company don’t live it and breathe it themselves, you won’t get there very fast, if at all. “The one irrefutable truth is that in any large organization, any transformation that is to ‘stick’ must emerge from within,” Ozzie writes. “Those on the outside can strongly influence, particularly with their wallets. Those above are responsible for developing and articulating a compelling vision, eliminating obstacles, prioritizing resources, and generally setting the stage with a principled approach. But the power and responsibility to truly effect transformation exists in no small part at the edge. Within those who, led or inspired, feel personally and collectively motivated to make; to act; to do.”

Access Content Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1697825/ray-ozzies-new-memo-five-lessons-for-leaders

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

Optimists Get Jobs More Easily — and Get Promoted More, Researchers Find - Improvisations - MIT Sloan Management Review

Optimists Get Jobs More Easily — and Get Promoted More, Researchers Find - Improvisations - MIT Sloan Management Review

MIT Sloan Managment Review

Martha E. Mangelsdorf
October 20th, 2010

Optimists Get Jobs More Easily — and Get Promoted More, Researchers Find

Recent research finds evidence that optimism pays off in job hunting and promotions.

Researchers Ron Kaniel (Fuqua School of Business, Duke), Cade Massey (Yale School of Management) and David T. Robinson (Fuqua School) studied the effect of an optimistic disposition on MBA students’ job searches and then promotions in the two years after they graduated.

The bottom line? Optimists fared better than their less-optimistic peers in some important ways, the researchers report in a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper. For one thing, the optimistically inclined MBA students found comparable jobs to their peers — but found them more easily, with less-intensive job searches. Even better, two years after graduation, the optimists were more likely than their less-optimistic peers to have been promoted.

Interestingly, the better job-hunting performance doesn’t appear to occur because optimists have information that might objectively lead them to believe they’ll do better. For example, when the researchers asked the MBA students about their likely salary package in their first job, the optimists tended to predict that their starting earnings would be higher than average for their peers — but optimists didn’t, in fact, end up with higher average starting salaries.

The researchers also asked the MBA students in the study to identify those students in their MBA section who were the most charismatic, the most likely to become CEO or the most optimistic — to try to see if optimistic students were optimistic because they were more personable. In general, optimists did turn out to be perceived by their peers as more charismatic — but that accounted for only a fraction (at most approximately 1/3) of their greater success in the labor market.

What’s the rest of that success attributable to? The researchers can’t say for sure, but they note that other research has suggested that people who are optimistic by disposition are good at coping with problems and flexible about trying new courses of action when needed. And, the authors point out, there’s the question of self-fulfilling prophecies.

Interestingly, the researchers note that their findings suggest that appearing to others to be optimistic if you’re not would yield some — but not all – of the job-hunting benefits of a naturally optimistic disposition.

So if you aren’t actually optimistic, you may get some of the career benefits of optimism by successfully pretending to be so! Maybe the old song “Keep Your Sunny Side Up” was right….

Posted in: Blog, MBA, careers

Martha E. Mangelsdorf

Martha E. Mangelsdorf is a senior editor at MIT Sloan Management Review. An experienced business and careers journalist, she loves to edit, write and learn about management, innovation and entrepreneurship — something she has been doing since she worked at Inc. magazine, where she was a senior editor, a senior writer, and a senior producer at Inc.com. She has been editing for MIT Sloan Management Review since 2005.

Another area of fascination for Mangelsdorf is career transition and career change. For four years, she wrote a monthly series about career change for The Boston Globe. Her book about that subject, Strategies for Successful Career Change: Finding Your Very Best Next Work Life, was published by Ten Speed Press/Random House in 2009. Strategies for Successful Career Change was named one of ten “best new books for job hunting” by More.com and one of “five books that will help your career” by CareerBuilder.com.

Access Source Content: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/martha-mangelsdorf/

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

When Your Team Turns on You - Amy Gallo - Best Practices - Harvard Business Review

When Your Team Turns on You - Amy Gallo - Best Practices - Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review

Best Practices

When Your Team Turns on You

8:45 AM Monday October 25, 2010
by Amy Gallo Comments ( 1)

It can happen to even the most competent leaders. Your team members disengage or stop coming to meetings. They refuse to, or simply don't do, what you ask of them. They begin meeting without you. When these things happen, it may be that your team has turned against you. For a leader, this can be a disheartening and terrifying experience, but it is not irreparable. By being open to what is happening, listening to your team and being direct, you can regain the group's confidence and your effectiveness as a leader.

What the Experts Say
"Building strong, good teams at the beginning is the best thing you can do to prevent problems in the first place," says Deborah Ancona, the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed. Unfortunately, even your best efforts may not be able to prevent a team from turning. Teams begin to disrespect leaders for all sorts of reasons. You may have failed to involve them in important decisions, or claimed too much credit for their work. "If team members do not feel respected by the leader, they will reciprocate the sentiment," says Deborah H. Gruenfeld, the Moghadam Family Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior and Co-Director of the Executive Program for Women Leaders at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Or it may be that certain individuals don't respect each other, or are holding grudges, and are turning on you because you haven't done anything about it. "Typically people start something when they feel they haven't been heard or something has happened that they think is unfair," says Gabriella Jordan, the President of the Education Division at The Handel Group, an executive coaching firm based in New York City, and co-author of "Designing Your Life," a course taught through MIT. Regardless of the reason for discontent, you may be able to earn back your team's trust and commitment by using the following approach.

Name What is Happening
As with most problems, the first step is to admit to yourself what is going on. This is not always easy. "The signs that a team has turned hostile can be tough to discern," says Gruenfeld. Therefore, you need to be attuned to signs of conflict. "Teams that have turned on their leader but are not prepared to address the problem might appear pleasant but 'checked out.' They might be reluctant to engage or spend time with the leader, fearing that their true feelings will leak out," says Gruenfeld. "In many cases teams that have lost faith in their leader will respond not with overt hostility, but with what looks more like apathy. The energy that once went toward supporting the leader's goals and initiatives will be deflected toward other, more personally satisfying activities, like gossiping about the leader, avoiding team assignments, looking for new employment, and goofing off."

Once you've identified the problem, it's critical that you acknowledge it to your team as well. Otherwise it can become the elephant in the room. "If you're pretending that nothing's wrong and the rest of your team knows there is, it can be really problematic," says Ancona.

Understand the Underlying Cause
To be able to address the issue at hand, you need to know what caused it. Find the original source of the discontent. Is one person driving the negativity or are the feelings shared across the team? Are people taking issue with your leadership or are their problems with other team members causing them to rebel against you? Ask direct and open questions. If you hear second-hand about the original source of the dissatisfaction, ask the messenger to have that person come talk to you directly.

Own the Issue
No matter the cause of the problem, recognize that things became destructive under your watch. Publicly acknowledge what you have done to contribute to the problem, and explain what you are going to do address it. "The irony is that people think that if they look vulnerable, it puts them at risk. In fact, it makes them more powerful," says Jordan. Ancona agrees. "Great leaders are able to get up and say, 'Thanks for the feedback. I realize I haven't been doing X. These are the steps I'm taking to correct this and I'd appreciate feedback on how it's going." Be direct and ask for help changing the situation.

Listen and Encourage Directness
Jordan recommends enforcing a no-gossip policy across the board. "Gossip is so destructive," she says. Tell people if they have a problem with anyone else on the team, including you, they should speak to the person directly — even if it is you. Demonstrate that you are willing to listen and deal with whatever the issue is. When the issue is more team-wide, "You want to give people an opportunity to be heard," says Jordan. You can do this in a public forum, or in one-on-one meetings if people aren't comfortable speaking in a group. Other options may be to send out a survey or bring in an outsider who can gather information on your behalf. The method is less important than the action of asking for input. This allows people to air out grievances as well as establishes open lines of communication to prevent future revolts.

When the Problem Doesn't Go Away
When a team is particularly defiant or upset, you may not be able to resolve the problem alone. Find a mediator — either an outside coach or an uninvolved person from another part of the organization — to get the issues out in the open and negotiate a resolution. Working with a coach may help you understand why your style or approach is not effective with your team. If that fails, you may need to step down as leader. Or, as Ancona says, "If there is a mismatch with the leader and the task at hand, the team may need to be broken up." Jordan adds, "If you can't resolve why they are unhappy, maybe they don't belong there."

Principles to Remember

Do:

• Be open to hearing your team's complaints and feedback
• Institute a "no gossip" policy so that people deal directly with one another
• Take responsibility for your role in creating the situation

Don't:

• Pretend nothing is happening because, most likely, everyone is aware of it
• Be afraid to show vulnerability
• Allow negative feelings to fester — give people a chance to air their grievances

Case Study #1: Getting your team back and saving your business
In late 2004, Bentley Meeker, CEO/Owner of Bentley Meeker Lighting and Staging Inc, an event lighting design firm in Manhattan, was ready to close his company. The business was doing okay but his employees were suffering: morale was low and people were angry and resentful. "The soul of my business was black," Bentley recalls. He had heard rumblings of gossip about his personal life and how he ran things. "I was very permissive in that way because I let it happen," he says. His girlfriend at the time convinced him to work with an executive coach before he closed. He was resistant at first and unsure that this situation was resolvable.

He started by gathering his staff for an "air out session." It became clear that people were dwelling on past conflicts that had never been addressed. In fact, one clash was over who had picked up a dinner tab several years before. Bentley instructed that they start communicating directly. There couldn't be any gossip if they were going to turn things around. He also acknowledged his role in creating the destructive atmosphere. "My own commitment to being right was giving them permission to be committed to being right. So they were spending time gathering evidence to support their being right rather than focusing on the business," he explains.

Once his employees started having the difficult conversations needed to resolve their conflicts, they began to feel more united and committed. "It was all about clean communication," Bentley says. Soon they realized there was pent-up client demand they hadn't been able to serve because they were so wrapped up in what was going on inside the business. In the next six years, the company's revenue tripled.

Case Study #2: Helping a manager regain her team's trust
Several years ago, Josh Corcoran,* the publisher of an international fashion magazine, began hearing complaints about Katherine*, a member of his executive team. Her direct reports felt she didn't care about them. They accused her of being fixated on pleasing Josh, not representing their opinions or hard work, and blaming them when problems arose, without taking any responsibility herself.

Six months before, as part of a restructuring process, the leadership team had agreed on a management doctrine dictating how they would resolve conflicts. It included a policy of direct communication. So Josh encouraged Katherine's team members to go directly to her. He knew their criticisms would be difficult for Katherine to hear so he reached out to her as well. She was frustrated. She thought her loyalty should be to him and that her team members didn't understand her role. Josh helped her see that to be effective, she would have to stop driving her employees so hard and take into consideration what they needed in addition to what he wanted. He also helped her understand what role she had played in creating the problem even if it wasn't entirely her fault. "The people who had issues weren't really giving her time to make mistakes and grow. They could've been more direct and tolerant when situations went down," Josh said.

Katherine sat down with her team members and apologized. She explained that she had responded to the pressure of her job in a way that didn't respect their perspectives. Once she had taken responsibility for her part, the team was much more forgiving. In a matter of weeks, Katherine was able to turn the situation around and regain her group's trust.

*Names have been changed

Access Content Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2010/10/when-your-team-turns-on-you.html

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

How to Schmooze Your Way to Business Success | BNET

How to Schmooze Your Way to Business Success BNET

BNET

How to Schmooze Your Way to Business Success

By Steve Tobak October 25, 2010

Anyone who says that schmoozing isn’t critical to business success is just being disingenuous. It’s certainly been a big part of my success. If you knew me, this would come as no surprise. My wife calls me a BSer. There may be some truth to that on a personal level, but when it comes to business, I take schmoozing very seriously.

You see, business success is all about relationships, and schmoozing enables relationships. A couple of weeks ago we discussed how your network is your biggest asset, especially for top execs. Well, schmoozing is how you network. It also plays a big role in marketing and sales, getting deals done, developing and maintaining long-term relationships with customers, garnering support from your peers and coworkers, selling your ideas, even getting ahead in your career.

I’m still willing to bet that some of you, like my wife, think schmoozing is all about BSing, telling people what they want to hear, that sort of thing. So not true. In fact, the actual definition of schmooze is “to converse informally, to chat, or to chat in a friendly and persuasive manner especially so as to gain favor, business, or connections.” Who among you doesn’t consider that to be a critical part of business success?

And while successful schmoozing is all about being open and genuine, about connecting with people, there are plenty of lines you shouldn’t cross. Just follow these 10 Tips to Becoming a Great Schmoozer and you won’t go astray:

1. Don’t BS. Let’s get one thing straight. BSing destroys credibility. If you want to become a successful executive or leader, don’t BS. Period. It doesn’t matter how smart others think you are, just how smart you really are.


2. It’s never about you; it’s always about them. Connecting with people means finding things you have in common, or even different views on a subject you both feel strongly about. You already know you, what you don’t know is them.


3. People like to be schmoozed. I know some will disagree, but they’re wrong. People like attention, to be noticed, to connect and engage. That is, as long as you’re straightforward about it.


4. Be open and genuine. Be you. The most effective way to connect with people and find common ground is to be yourself, with all your native charm, faults, and idiosyncrasies. There’s nothing more attractive than genuine humanity - humility, humor, being yourself.


5. Don’t overdo it. Next to BSing and trying to be someone you’re not, trying too hard is the biggest schmoozing pitfall. Pushing too hard will backfire.


6. Everyone is schmoozable. CEOs, VCs, tough administrative assistants, everyone is schmoozable, for the simple reason that everyone likes the attention … under the right conditions.


7. Always be appropriate. Never overstep your bounds or make others feel uncomfortable. Never invade someone’s personal space. Not sure what the boundaries are? It’s different for everyone, so pay attention; they’ll let you know.


8. Always be respectful of people’s time. Now more than ever, our time is our most precious resource. Enough said.


9. Don’t talk at people. Nobody likes to be talked at. They like to be engaged. They like to be listened to. There’s a big difference. Just remember: give a little, get a little.


10. Let yourself be schmoozed. Although, by definition, schmoozing is related to persuasion, you’ll be better off just thinking of it in terms of long-term relationships. That means you should always be willing to help people first. It’s good Karma.

Access Content Source: http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/how-to-schmooze-your-way-to-business-success/5879

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

Women's power to hurt the male ego - CNN.com

Women's power to hurt the male ego - CNN.com

Women's power to hurt the male ego

By Michelle Burford, Oprah.com

October 25, 2010 9:43 a.m. EDT

Acknowledge the big picture and postive qualities your man exhibits before asking for a change.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A woman has more influence over her man than she thinks
• When a man falls in love with a woman, he gives her easy access to his self-esteem
• Men take words more literally than women and hear them in sweeping terms
• A man will try to live up to the image his wife has of him

(Oprah.com) -- Here's a closely guarded secret: Women have more influence over men than they think. Psychologist Jay Carter talks to Michelle Burford about male self-esteem, the criticism that could demolish a man and what male intimacy is really about.

Twenty-six years of counseling men and couples have given Jay Carter an unusually clear window into men's hearts and minds. Carter's observations are so eye-opening that we asked him about everything from finding the key to a man's inner life to the best way to chew him out when you're mad:

Michelle Burford: You've written that most women have no idea of their power to wound men. Where does this power originate?

Jay Carter: During a boy's most important developmental period -- his first five years -- he usually gets his self-esteem from his mother. I think some of Freud's theories are hogwash, but I believe he was right about at least one: Whereas a girl might choose to grow up to become like her mother in certain ways, a boy tries to be becoming to his mother -- to make her proud.

Years later, when he meets someone he wants to spend his life with, he unconsciously gives her what I call his "jujube doll" -- a kind of voodoo-like name I have for the part of a man's self-esteem that's vulnerable to a woman's opinion of him. If she sticks a pin in his doll, he recoils. Most women I talk with don't realize what kind of influence they have over men.

Burford: Doesn't a woman likewise hand over part of her power to the most significant man in her life?

Carter: Yes, but she does it by sharing her most private feelings. The seat of a woman's soul is her emotions. A woman usually believes you know her when you know what she feels. But the seat of a man's soul is his intent or purpose.

That's why when a woman bares her soul by disclosing her feelings, a man often doesn't recognize that as significant. He's been socialized to discount feelings.

For him, baring the soul means sharing his hopes and dreams. He may say things that seem boring, silly or outlandish: "You know what I'd do if I had $20,000? I'd invest it in lotto." But if a woman really listens, he'll share more.

After a failure, a man might express his intentions by saying, "I know I've messed up, but here's what I wanted for our family." When a woman understands this, she can begin to share her own intentions as a way of drawing him closer. Men respect hopes and dreams. That's a language they speak.

Burford: In your book "Nasty Women," you state that men are more word-oriented. But aren't women considered more verbal?

Carter: Yes, but research on gender differences has proven that men tend to take words more literally and to hear them in more sweeping terms.

Let's say a woman asks her husband to pick up a half-gallon of orange juice after work. When he arrives home empty-handed, she's irritated.

She might offhandedly say, "You are so irresponsible." All he hears is the word irresponsible. He believes she's saying he's irresponsible in general. He thinks, "What about all the months I paid the mortgage? Does one slipup erase all my effort? And why is she overreacting?"

With his self-esteem wounded, he may launch into a defense about what it means to be responsible. She gets frustrated because he's so caught up in words that he doesn't acknowledge her feelings -- and that's usually because he doesn't remember how important feelings are to her.

Oprah.com: How well do you know your partner? Take the quiz to find out

Burford: What if the man really is irresponsible? How do you communicate that without inciting a gender missile crisis?

Carter: If you decide you want to keep the man around, don't use the word irresponsible. You can call him a jerk or even an ass and it won't devastate him, because what is a jerk? That's not concretely definable. But what a man feels when you call him irresponsible is what a woman feels when you call her a bitch. It's the ultimate insult. So if you're angry at a man, just call him a bitch.

Burford: Suppose a woman tunes in to her partner's intentions but he doesn't reciprocate by hearing her needs. How can she convey her frustration without becoming a nag or know-it-all?

Carter: She can get his attention through action. If a man leaves his pajamas on the floor, a woman might get so upset that she'll accuse him of disregarding her feelings. Then for two days, he'll pick up the PS to avoid an emotional outburst.

But if two men were living together, one would simply say to the other, "Do you think you could put away your smelly pajamas before my girlfriend gets here?" The other agrees -- but still leaves his PJs out. So his roommate finally says with a grin, "The next time you leave your pajamas out, I'm gonad burn 'elm in the backyard." He does. When the other guy looks for his PJs, he finds a smoldering pile of cloth.

That's how men operate. They don't call each other irresponsible or accuse each other of not caring about feelings; they simply burn the damn pajamas. For a woman to get a man's attention without bruising his jujube doll, she has to show rather than tell.

Burford: You've written that when a woman begins to care deeply for a man, he becomes her home-improvement project. Why?

Carter: A woman often marries a man for his potential. If women married men for who they actually were, there would be far fewer marriages. When a woman loves a man, she says to herself, 'I could improve him. Once we're together, things will be different.'

Since I began my practice in 1977, I've heard this refrain hundreds of times. I try to get it across to the woman that what she sees is what she gets. This is him. If he's drinking every Friday and Saturday night, look forward to a lifetime of weekend alcoholism. He may cut out Friday, but he'll still be a drinker.

Men tend to resist change. In fact, one of the most prized characteristics of a man's friendship with other men is total acceptance. When a woman begins to encourage a man to live up to his potential, he misunderstands that as her overall dissatisfaction with him. What he feels is tantamount to what women feel when men don't hear and respond to what they say they need.

Burford: How might the relationship unravel when she expresses her disappointment?

Carter:The man may initially improve according to her recommendations -- remember, he has a lot invested in what she thinks of him. But over time, he becomes slower to respond. The there's the day when she inadvertently steps on his jujube doll with a spiked heel, and it's so painful that he snatches his self-esteem back.

That's the day she loses significant influence. He tries to make himself not care what she thinks, which is why she begins to feel he's emotionally distant. He stops connecting. He doesn't look her in the eyes unless he's angry. When the marriage is on the brink of breakup, the woman drags him into my office. That's when I hear what almost any therapist can tell you is the most repeated phrase among men: "No matter what I do, I can never please this woman."

While she's been genuinely trying to improve him with the best of intentions, he's been feeling her efforts as a shot to his self-esteem. After all the work she has put into him -- he finally eats with his mouth closed, he doesn't say ignorant things -- he may run off with another woman.

That's often because he's looking for someone who will think the world of him -- someone who will see him as he thinks his wife once did. What he doesn't know is that he's bound to repeat the cycle because he hasn't done the work of understanding himself, the woman in his life, and the differences in how they communicate. He thinks his new woman is looking enraptured because he's the greatest, but what she's actually thinking is, "Wow -- what potential."

Burford: Once a man has snatched away his "jujube doll," can a woman ever get it back?

Carter: Yes. She can sit down with him and say something like 'It wasn't my intention to hurt you, but I have. I really do think you're a wonderful man.' He may never admit that there are heel marks all over his doll, but if she approaches him this way, he'll slowly open up again.

Burford: How can a woman encourage her partner to reach his full potential without hurting his self-esteem?

A: By stroking the jujube doll before bringing the hammer down. Let's say a man leaves his McDonald's wrappers all over the car. The woman is angry that he's inconsiderate of her desire to drive without bits of cheese, pickles, and dried ketchup stuck to the steering wheel. What should she say?

"I see how organized you are by the way you keep your desk, which is why I'm a bit surprised about the wreck our car is." Because she has first acknowledged the big picture -- "I know you're a neat guy" -- the criticism doesn't sting. And if she keeps the whole thing light, she'll get a laugh out of him before he heads out to clean the car.

I'm not suggesting that women spend their lives enabling and patronizing. This is not about telling a man he has the brightest gold chain or the biggest penis. Emphasizing a man's positive qualities is acknowledging the complete picture of who he is and what he has already done right.

Burford: After nearly three decades of counseling men, do you think most really want to please women?

Carter: Oh, yes! And I believe that a man will feel even more motivated to please a woman he loves if he knows that, in general, she already thinks the world of him. Once a woman tells a man how responsible and caring he is, he'll usually do all he can to live up to that image. Just to make her proud, he'll rise up and move mountains.

Access Source Content: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/25/o.glass.ego/

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

Five Ingredients of Personal Growth | GiANT Impact

Five Ingredients of Personal Growth GiANT Impact

Giant Impact

Five Ingredients of Personal GrowthBy John C. Maxwell

As any farmer knows, the growth of a crop only happens when the right ingredients are present. To harvest plentiful fields, the farmer has to begin by planting the right seed in rich topsoil where sunlight and water can help the seed to sprout, mature, and bear fruit. If any of the ingredients (seeds, topsoil, sunlight, or water) are missing, the crop won't grow.
Growing as a leader also requires the proper ingredients. Unless the right attitudes and actions are cultivated an aspiring leader will sputter and fail rather than growing in influence. Let's look at five basic qualities essential for growth in leadership.

1) Teachability

Arrogance crowds out room for improvement. That's why humility is the starting point for personal growth. As Erwin G. Hall said, "An open mind is the beginning of self-discovery and growth. We can't learn anything new until we can admit that we don't already know everything."

Adopting a beginner's mindset helps you to be teachable. Beginners are aware that they don't know it all, and they proceed accordingly. As a general rule, they're open and humble, noticeably lacking in the rigidity that often accompanies experience and achievement. It's easy enough to have a beginner's mind when you're actually a beginner, but maintaining teachability gets trickier in the long term especially when you've already achieved some degree of success.

2) Sacrifice

Growth as a leader involves temporary loss. It may mean giving up familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, or relationships that have lost their meaning. Whatever the case, everything we gain in life comes as a result of sacrificing something else. We must give up to go up.

3) Security

To keep learning throughout life, you have to be willing, no matter what your position is, to say, "I don't know." It can be hard for executives to admit lacking knowledge because they feel as if everyone is looking to them for direction, and they don't want to let people down their people. However, followers aren't searching for perfection in their leaders. They're looking for an honest, authentic, and courageous leader who, regardless of the obstacles facing the organization, won't rest until the problem is solved.

It took me seven years to hit my stride as a communicator. During those seven years I gave some boring speeches, and I felt discouraged at times. However, I was secure enough to keep taking the stage and honing my communication skills until I could connect with an audience. Had I been insecure, then the negative evaluations of others would have sealed my fate and I never would have excelled in my career.

4) Listening

Listen, learn, and ask questions from somebody successful who has gone on before you. Borrow from their experiences so that you can avoid their mistakes and emulate their triumphs. Solicit feedback and take to heart what you're told. The criticism of friends may seem bitter in the short-term but, when heeded, it can save you from falling victim to your blind spots.

5) Application

Knowledge has a limited shelf life. Unless used immediately or carefully preserved, it spoils and becomes worthless. Put the lessons you learn into practice so that your insights mature into understanding.

About

John C. Maxwell is an internationally respected leadership expert, speaker, and author who has sold more than 19 million books. Dr. Maxwell is the founder of EQUIP, a non-profit organization that has trained more than 5 million leaders in 126 countries worldwide. Each year he speaks to the leaders of diverse organizations, such as Fortune 500 companies, foreign governments, the National Football League, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the United Nations. A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week best-selling author, Maxwell has written three books that have sold more than a million copies: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. His blog can be read at JohnMaxwellOnLeadership.com. He can be followed at Twitter.com/JohnCMaxwell.

"This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, GiANT Impact's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at www.giantimpact.com."

Access Content Source: http://www.giantimpact.com/articles/read/five_ingredients_of_personal_growth/

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

Do you come across as confident? Are you sure? | SmartBlog on Workforce

Do you come across as confident? Are you sure? SmartBlog on Workforce

SmartBlog.com

Do you come across as confident? Are you sure?

This post is by Kurt W. Mortensen, author of “The Laws of Charisma” and several other books on persuasion, motivation and influence.

Confidence increases influence and attracts people to you. It breeds trust. The people we admire and look up to the most are usually those that know what they want and have the confidence to get it. Such confidence is conveyed via tone of voice, body language and other subconscious triggers, and leaders must learn to communicate with great confidence and authority.

But there is a fine line between being confident and arrogant. Complicating things further, how you think you come across and how others actually perceive you are usually two completely different things.

How can you tell the difference between confidence and cockiness? It’s mostly about your intention. Confidence is motivated by a sincere desire to help others and make a difference. True confidence comes from knowing that you have the tools, resources and ability to do the job that’s expected of you.

In contrast, cockiness is driven by a need to help yourself. Deep down, cockiness actually reveals insecurity — the very opposite of confidence. Arrogant individuals seek approval and recognition for all the wrong reasons and in all the wrong ways. Arrogance is self-centered, whereas confidence is people-centered. Arrogance is about you and confidence is about them. And if your focus is off, it simply doesn’t matter if you say and do all the right things.

Here are five simple steps to help you avoid slipping into arrogance:

• Always take feedback or criticism with an open heart.
• Spend more time listening then talking.
• Be able to admit that you were wrong.
• Ask questions to demonstrate concern.
• Have someone else explain why you are credible.

Access Content Source: http://smartblogs.com/workforce/2010/10/17/do-you-come-across-as-confident-are-you-sure/

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (and Very Few Have) | Fast Company

The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (and Very Few Have) Fast Company

Fast Company

FC Expert Blog

The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (and Very Few Have)

BY FC Expert Blogger Tony SchwartzFri Oct 15, 2010

When I was a very young journalist, full of bravado and barely concealed insecurity, Ed Kosner, editor of Newsweek, hired me to do a job I wasn't sure I was capable of doing. Thrown into deep water, I had no choice but to swim. But I also knew he wouldn't let me drown. His confidence buoyed me.

Some years later, I was hired away by Arthur Gelb, the managing editor of The New York Times. This time, I was seduced by Gelb's contagious exuberance about being part of a noble fraternity committed to putting out the world's greatest newspaper.

Over the last dozen years, I've worked with scores of CEOs and senior executives to help them build more engaged, high performance cultures by energizing their employees. Along the way, I've landed on four key capacities that show up, to one degree or another, in the most inspiring leaders I've met.

1. Great leaders recognize strengths in us that we don't always yet fully see in ourselves.

This is precisely what Kosner did with me. He provided belief where I didn't yet have it, and I trusted his judgment more than my own. It's the Pygmalion effect: expectations become self-fulfilling.

Both positive and negative emotions feed on themselves. In the absence of Kosner's confidence, I simply wouldn't have assumed I was ready to write at that level.

Because he seemed so sure I could--he saw better than I did how my ambition and relentlessness would eventually help me prevail--I wasted little energy in corrosive worry and doubt.

Instead, I simply invested myself in getting better, day by day, step by step. Because we can achieve excellent in almost anything we practice with sufficient focus and intention, I did get better, which fed my own confidence and satisfaction, and my willingness to keep pushing myself.

2. Rather than simply trying to get more out of us, great leaders seek to understand and meet our needs, above all a compelling mission beyond our immediate self-interest, or theirs.

Great leaders understand that how they make people feel, day in and day out, has a profound influence on how they perform.

We each have a range of core needs--physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. Great leaders focus on helping their employees meet each of these needs, recognizing that it helps them to perform better and more sustainably.

Arthur Gelb helped my meet not just my emotional need to be valued, but also my spiritual need to be engaged in a mission bigger than my own success. Far too few leaders take the time to figure out what they truly stand for, beyond the bottom line, and why we should feel excited to work for them.

3. Great leaders take the time to clearly define what success looks like, and then empower and trust us to figure out the best way to achieve it.

One of our core needs is for self-expression. One of the most demoralizing and infantilizing experiences at work is to feel micromanaged.

The job of leaders is not to do the work of those they lead, but to serve as Chief Energy Officer -- to free and fuel us to bring the best of ourselves to work every day.

Part of that responsibility is defining, in the clearest possible way, what's expected of us--our concrete deliverables. This is a time-consuming and challenging process, and most leaders I've met do very little of it. When they do it effectively, the next step for leaders is to get out of the way.

That requires trusting that employees will figure out for themselves the best way to get their work done, and that even though they'll take wrong turns and make mistakes, they learn and grow stronger along the way.

4. The best of all leaders--a tiny fraction--have the capacity to embrace their own opposites, most notably vulnerability alongside strength, and confidence balanced by humility.

This capacity is uniquely powerful because all of us struggle, whether we're aware of it or not, with our self worth. We're each vulnerable to believing, at any given moment, that we're not good enough.

Great leaders don't feel the need to be right, or to be perfect, because they've learned to value themselves in spite of shortcomings they freely acknowledge. In turn, they bring this generous spirit to those they lead.

The more leaders make us feel valued, in spite of our imperfections, the less energy we will spend asserting, defending and restoring our value, and the more energy we have available to create value.

All four capacities are grounded in one overarching insight. Great leaders recognize that the best way to get the highest value is to give the highest value.

Reprinted from TonySchwartz.com

Tony Schwartz is President and CEO of The Energy Project, a company that helps individuals and organizations fuel energy, engagement, focus, and productivity by harnessing the science of high performance. Tony's most recent book, The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance, was published in May 2010 and became an immediate The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. Follow him on Twitter @TonySchwartz.

Access Content Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1695382/the-four-capacities-every-great-leader-needs-and-very-few-have?partner=rss

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

Four Steps to Improved Frontline Execution - Ed Barrows - Frontline Leadership - Harvard Business Review

Four Steps to Improved Frontline Execution - Ed Barrows - Frontline Leadership - Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review

Frontline Leadership

Four Steps to Improved Frontline Execution

8:43 AM Thursday October 21, 2010
by Ed Barrows

This post is part of an HBR Spotlight examining leadership lessons from the military.

For the past 10 years I have been helping managers improve their execution. Despite my efforts — and the efforts of other researchers and consultants — the problem of effective execution persists. A review of the July-August 2010 edition of Harvard Business Review confirms the challenge. In a survey of 1,075 readers, editors found the most significant execution obstacles facing organizations were those associated with making strategy meaningful to frontline workers. Activities such as translating strategy to execution and aligning jobs to strategy are among the most pressing issues; employees often times have little more than a foggy idea of what their organization's strategy is and how they fit into it. Given the burgeoning scale and complexity of the average entity today, one might conclude that personalizing strategy to any one individual employee is a problem that won't be solved any time soon. But while almost every organization wrestles with execution, there are some that have managed to simplify, and even codify, approaches to execution that have proven effective in even the most challenging circumstances.

For the past 235 years, the U.S. Marine Corps have been'making Marines and winning battles' — code for executing strategy. One contributor to its success is the combat order — a straightforward format for articulating the key components of any mission. Marine Corps Reference Publication 5-2A, Operational Terms and Graphics, defines an order as, "A communication, written, oral, or by signal, which conveys instructions from a superior to a subordinate." A specific type of combat order, known as the five paragraph order, is so fundamental to the Corps' success that every Marine must learn and use it in the planning and execution of every mission.

As the name states, the format consists of five separate but sequential sections:

1. Situation: explains what's happening on the ground
   
2. Mission: contains the task and purpose for the action
   
3. Execution: describes how the leader intends to accomplish the mission
   
4. Administration and Logistics: identifies the administrative and logistical information necessary for the operation to be successful
   
5. Command and Signal: details the plan for command and control of the operation.

The five-paragraph order is as useful for patrols in Afghanistan as it is in for parades in Boston. Each paragraph is essential in ensuring planning completeness; the Execution section is most useful for managers looking to improve their ability to get things done. Elegant in its simplicity, the Execution section contains four steps that can be followed by anyone, at any level, to drive both clarity and consistency to the front lines.
Step 1: State Your Intent. In a military organization, the commander's intent is simply what the leader wants to happen with respect to the mission at hand. A key part of that intent is the End State, the outcome. When Ford executives presented their business case in 2008 to the Senate Banking Committee, they described their End State as "Aggressively restructure to operate profitably at the current demand and changing the model mix." Congressional leaders understood that the aim from top team was to achieve profitable operations. So too did employees. Work that followed at the individual level would then be focused on changing skills that would themselves contribute to achievement of the end state. To improve execution, managers should think through their own end states and communicate to employees what they expect as an outcome at the end of the project, period or strategy at hand.
Step 2: Develop a Concept of Operations. Concept of operations describes the way in which the unit will accomplish the mission. It's the strategy at the unit level. While the concept of operations in a Marine order might describe the detailed movement of ground combat forces, at the individual employee level the concept of operations needn't contain more than a few simple statements describing how the employee will work toward the desired end state. Randstat, the global staffing organization, has 34,000 employees in 5,200 locations. Its strategy is based on four building blocks: strong service concepts, best people, excellent execution, and superior brands. This concept of operations is not just a high level scheme, it's intended to be relevant for all employees. Management states explicitly that it the concept of operations "extends to every branch in every country." Accordingly, individual employee actions need to be developed consistent with it.
Step 3: Specify Tasks. Tasks are actions taken by subordinate units or individuals. Collectively, tasks comprise the full concept of operations. Marine commanders identify tasks to lower levels that become lower level missions or critical success factors that must be accomplished in order for the overall organization to be successful. Central to effective frontline execution is identification of those tasks that an individual must accomplish. Alcoa has identified a series of goals which form their sustainability strategy. One of those goals is to "Achieve zero violation of Alcoa's anti-corruption policy." To improve clarity for employees, 'key actions' are listed which include monitoring and auditing use of self-assessments. This task — derived directly from the strategy — would be in addition to an employee's daily work. Managers should identify themselves or help employees identify those tasks vital to achievement of the strategy. Failure to do so could mean employees are working on activities that are incongruent with the overall concept of operations.
Step 4: Clarify Coordinating Instructions. Orders are incomplete without instructions clarifying how two or more subordinate units are to coordinate their efforts. For Marine orders this can consist of mission critical details such as reaching a vital location by a prescribed time or stating mission go/no go criteria. Marines don't work in isolation and neither do private sector employees; they both are on teams that must function smoothly in dynamic and unpredictable environments. BankPlus lists as part of its vision a focus on customer care. To achieve the vision, employees are expected to "work together as a team to build customer relationships." These explicit instructions are not just platitudes, they provide the guidance necessary to calibrate behaviors at all levels of the organization — especially the frontline. Thus, managers need to work with employees to clarify how they will operate together within the organization overall for success.
While their work is often times chaotic and unpredictable, Marines have overcome the execution problem by consistently applying the four steps above with their overall planning process. Corporate wanting to improve execution in their own organization can take a page out of the Marines' battle plan.

Edward A. Barrows, Jr. is a lecturer at Boston College and founder of edbarrows.com. He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, Marine Reserve. He specializes in coaching executive teams to improve their strategy processes.

Access Content Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/frontline-leadership/2010/10/four-steps-to-improved-frontli.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

Shape Perceptions of Your Work, Early and Often - Jeffrey Pfeffer - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review

Shape Perceptions of Your Work, Early and Often - Jeffrey Pfeffer - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review: The Conversation

Shape Perceptions of Your Work, Early and Often

1:47 PM Thursday October 21, 2010
by Jeffrey Pfeffer

This election season, like every politically fraught time, offers many lessons in the getting and wielding of power. What you may not appreciate is that the lessons apply not only to politicians but to people in every career situation. Here's a big one: what matters is not so much what you do, but what people think you have done.

I was reminded of this by a New York Times article pointing out that during President Obama's term, Americans' income taxes went down by $116 billion, but that's a little recognized fact. About half of those responding to recent public opinion poll thought their taxes had remained the same, a third thought they had gone up, and about one in ten said they did not know.

There is an obvious lesson for you in this: don't assume that anyone — your boss, your peer, or your subordinate — knows the good work you are doing. They are all probably focused on their own jobs and concerns. Do things to let them know.

Yes, I know this smacks of self-promotion, and self-promoters are not only disliked for blowing their own horns but not particularly credible in doing so. But there is a way around the dilemma. Research by social psychologist Robert Cialdini, two doctoral students, and myself shows that when you get someone else to sing your praises — even if that individual is hired by you, under your control, and the audience knows these facts — you receive attributions of competence without being tarred by the brush of behaving inappropriately.(Here's the pdf.) If hiring someone is not an option for you, then start relying on the norm of reciprocity. Praise one of your colleagues for her good work and chances are, she will feel obligated to return the favor. When others talk about your great works, those works will garner the attention they deserve.

There is also a second, more subtle, lesson: When it comes to job performance, be it in politics or in a company, perception becomes reality. This implies that you ought to manage your image and reputation as well as your actual work.

It's important to get started early on this, because perceptions become self-sustaining. This happens, first, because people tend to assimilate new information in ways consistent with their initial perception. John Browne, the former CEO of BP, was smart and hard-working and made sure everyone knew that. He was also shy and ill at ease in social situations, characteristics that might have impeded his rise to the top. But given the image of intelligence he projected in meetings and his willingness to move all over the world and work long hours, social reticence became interpreted as a result of his brilliance and intense concentration.

Perceptions are also self-sustaining because, once people have formed an impression of another, they stop actively gathering new information. Once I know you are smart, I won't attend as much to every little thing you do — which means you can more easily get away with being not so brilliant and I won't notice.

The old saw, then, that first impressions are lasting has real psychological basis. And the implication is clear: the most important time to focus on the image you are projecting is when you first enter an organization or a new job. That's when people are going to be forming their judgments. Get off on the right foot by doing a lot of good work early and also interacting with others in a style that conveys the sort of personal brand you are seeking to build — brilliant, sociable, humorous, serious or whatever image suits you.

And here's the corollary: if bosses and colleagues have formed some unfavorable impression of you in your current setting, then find another one. Many people want to "prove" that others are wrong about them — and they may be. But it's a waste of precious time to fight that uphill battle. Why make heroic efforts to dig out of a hole when the same energy spent elsewhere could make you a star?

I'll end with a last piece of advice: do consider having an intentional, strategic, public relations strategy. Cultivate the media, write stories and blogs, give speeches relevant to your industry and area of expertise — in short, become known. When Marcelo Miranda, now the CEO of Brazilian real estate and pre-fabricated housing manufacturer Precon, was named by one of the leading Brazilian business magazines one of the 10 CEOs of the future a few years ago, his future career success was assured. Miranda, a talented and hard working individual, ensured his media exposure — and continues to do so — by reaching out to the business press in numerous ways. As he so perceptively noted when I saw him in Sao Paulo recently, "I now run a private company. If I want people to appreciate how we are growing revenues by a factor of ten in one year, I have to let them know." That's good advice for everyone seeking to rise up the corporate ladder.

------------------

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, where he has taught since 1979. His new book from HarperBusiness is Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't.

Access Content Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/10/shape_perceptions_of_your_work.html

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

How Much Are You Worth? | Fast Company

How Much Are You Worth? Fast Company

FastCompany

How Much Are You Worth?

BY FC Expert Blogger Tony SchwartzWed Oct 20, 2010

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

It's the most compelling, preoccupying question we measure ourselves by every day, and it has very little to do with money. I'm talking about "worth" as in self-worth and "value," as in the degree to which we feel valued by others, and valuable in the world. Nothing more powerfully influences our behavior and our effectiveness at work.

Because organizations pay so little attention to how people are feeling in the workplace, and because we ourselves are so often unaware of what we're feeling, we often fail to recognize the effect that our emotions have on us, and on others.

We all experience challenges to our value at work every day--demanding and critical bosses, difficult clients and customers, tough assignments, tight deadlines, failure to achieve our goals, or the feeling that we're being excluded, singled out, overlooked, or not fully appreciated.

Think of each of these as a trigger: an event, a behavior, or a circumstance that prompts negative emotions--and more specifically, the experience of fight or flight.

We don't have to worry anymore about being attacked by real lions and tigers, but we're still vulnerable to threats to our sense of self worth. When we respond in fight or flight, we're less able to think clearly, less flexible, less resilient, and more impulsive and reactive.

It's a reverse value proposition: the more we feel threatened, the more energy we spend defending, restoring, and asserting our value, and the less energy we have available to create value.

Difficult as they are to calculate, the costs to engagement, productivity, and performance are immense. There may be no more alienating and energy-draining experience at work than feeling diminished and devalued.

When we worked at a large, well-known hospital, for example, the nurses told us that the single biggest challenge to their satisfaction and effectiveness was the feeling of not being valued by the doctors. Turnover was a huge problem, even though the nurses loved their work with patients.

When we asked the doctors to describe their biggest challenge, they were unanimous. It was the feeling of not being appreciated by the hospital's administrators. The origin of the corrosive culture was clear. The president of the hospital, a former surgeon, was well known for his explosive temper and his abusive behavior with both doctors and nurses.

Our core emotional need is to feel valued. Some years ago, the researcher James Gilligan was called into a prison to try to help out with an inmate who kept assaulting guards, even after he was placed in solitary confinement 24 hours a day.

"What do you want so badly," Gilligan asked the inmate, "that you are willing to give up everything else in order to get it?"

"Pride, dignity, and self esteem," the inmate replied, instantly. "And I'm willing to kill any motherf----- in that cell block to get it. If you ain't got pride, you ain't got nothing."

Plainly, that's extreme, but as Daniel Goleman has written. "Threats to our standing in the eyes of others are ... almost as powerful as those to our very survival."

Researchers have found that the highest rises in cortisol levels--the most extreme fight or flight response--are prompted by "threats to one's social self, or threat to one's social acceptance, esteem, and status."

Just think about the difference between hearing a compliment and a criticism. Which are you more inclined to believe? What do you dwell on longer?

The researcher John Gottman has found that among married couples, it takes at least five positive comments to offset one negative one.

The first move when you've been triggered is the simplest: take a deep breath and exhale slowly. So long as your body is flooded with stress hormones, you literally can't think straight, so it's best not to react at all.

At The Energy Project, we call this the Golden Rule of Triggers: Whatever you feel compelled to do, don't.

As soon as you're calm enough, ask yourself, "How am I feeling my value is at risk here?" You'll make a fascinating discovery. It's not what the other person said that triggered you; it's how you interpreted it.

The less you can make it about your value, the more control you'll have over how you respond.

When leaders themselves are insecure, the most obvious symptoms are self-aggrandizement, high need for control, poor listening skills and impatience, all of which only make those who work for them feel devalued.

The more genuinely you hold the value of someone you manage--even at moments when you must share a concern--the more focus and positive energy that person will bring to the task at hand.

Turn your awareness on yourself. It's a powerful first step.

Want to see how well you're managing the energy of those you lead? Take the Energy Audit for Leaders.

Reprinted from TonySchwartz.com

Tony Schwartz is President and CEO of The Energy Project, a company that helps individuals and organizations fuel energy, engagement, focus, and productivity by harnessing the science of high performance. Tony's most recent book, The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance, was published in May 2010 and became an immediate The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. Follow him on Twitter @TonySchwartz.

Access Source Content: http://www.fastcompany.com/1696617/how-much-are-you-worth

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.

Standing is the new sitting for some workers | San Francisco Examiner

Standing is the new sitting for some workers San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco Examiner

Nation

Standing is the new sitting for some workers

By: MICHAEL S. ROSENWALD
Associated Press
10/19/10 11:40 AM PDT

WASHINGTON — Some people can't stand working. Mark Ramirez works standing.

He is not a waiter or factory worker — he is a team leader at AOL. Ramirez could, if he wanted, curl into the cushiest leather chair in the Staples catalog. No, thanks. He prefers to stand most of the day at a desk raised to above stomach level.

"I've got my knees bent, I feel totally alive," Ramirez said. "It feels more natural to stand. I wouldn't go back to sitting."

In the past few years, standing has become the new sitting for 10 percent of AOL employees at the firm's Dulles campus, part of a standing ovation among accountants, programmers, bureaucrats, telemarketers and other office workers across the nation. GeekDesk, a California company that sells $800 desks raised by electric motors, says sales will triple this year. It has sold standing desks to the Secret Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. Many firms and government agencies require standing setups in new contracts for office furniture.

Standers have various reasons for taking to their feet: it makes them feel more focused, prevents drowsiness, makes them feel like a general even if they just push paper. (Former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld works standing up. So does novelist Philip Roth.) But unknown to them, a debate is percolating among ergonomics experts and public health researchers about whether all office workers should be encouraged to stand — to save lives.

In academic papers with titles such as, "Your Chair: Comfortable but Deadly," physicians point to surprising new research showing higher rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and even mortality among people who sit for long stretches. A study earlier this year in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that among 123,000 adults followed over 14 years, those who sat more than six hours a day were at least 18 percent more likely to die than those who sat less than three hours a day.

"Every rock we turn over when it comes to sitting is stunning," said Marc Hamilton, a leading researcher on inactivity physiology at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana. "Sitting is hazardous. It's dangerous. We are on the cusp of a major revolution about what we think of as healthy behavior in the workplace." He calls sitting "the new smoking."

Not so fast, other experts say. Standing too much at work will cause more long-term back injuries — ask factory workers, they say. Incidences of varicose veins among women will increase. The heart will have to pump more. Alan Hedge, a noted ergonomics scholar at Cornell University, went so far as to call standing at work "one of the stupidest things one would ever want to do. This is the high heels of the furniture industry."

What everyone can agree on, though, is that we were not exactly built to sit. "We were built to stand, to move, to walk," said James Levine, a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist who is so fanatical about not sitting at work that he walks at 1 mph all day on a treadmill at his desk.

He's the author of that "Comfortable but Deadly" paper, and in it, he provides a remarkable history of how we became a nation of sitters. The short version is that hunter-gatherers became agriculturists, the industrial revolution moved us into factories and the technological revolution moved us behind desks. And here we are, pecking away. Today's offices run on so much data that for many workers, two computer monitors are standard issue.

"With creativity, a person can eat, work, reproduce, play, shop and sleep without taking a step," Levine wrote. "Once enticed to the chair, we were stuck. Work and home alike: we do it sitting."

But when we sit, researchers say, important biological processes take a nap. An enzyme that vacuums dangerous fat out of the bloodstream only works properly when a body is upright. Standing also seems to ward off deadly heart disease, burn calories, increase how well insulin lowers glucose and produce the good brand of cholesterol. Most of these processes occur — or don't — regardless of whether someone exercises. Human beings need to stand.

"At 160 pounds, it takes a tremendous amount of machinery to keep me upright, and this process does more than simply hold me up," Levine said while using his desk treadmill. "Quite clearly, there are fundamental metabolic switches that go on when you stand up. The body isn't built to be sitting stationary all day long."

Kate Kirkpatrick stands at work, although not because she knew that doing so might extend her life. She had no idea. An executive at Gensler, an international design and architecture firm in the District, she began standing last year after a running injury made sitting painful.

The injury went away, but Kirkpatrick never retook her seat. She has a keyboard attached to her desk, which rises so she can stand and use it. She works most of the day standing up, wearing comfy running shoes. Her prized Aeron chair, that staple of modern office life? Pushed to the side. She feels great.

"I don't get that need-to-take-a-nap feeling in the middle of the day anymore," Kirkpatrick said. "My body just feels more healthy. I'm more alert. The tightness you get in the neck from sitting all day long, that's gone too. I'm just more comfortable now."

Eric Friedman, head of Montgomery County's office of consumer protection, started standing at work nearly 10 years ago because "all of my stress collects in my neck and I was getting a lot of headaches." He doesn't know what kind of shape he'd be in without standing, given that "all I feel like I do is swat down e-mails all day."

Like other standers, he said he wouldn't go back to sitting.

Hedge, the Cornell professor, isn't a fan of all this standing. "Making people stand all day is dumb," he said. "Standing increases torso muscle activity and spinal disc pressure, increases the risk of varicose veins, increases the risk of carotid artery disease and increases the load on the heart."

The sensible and most cost-effective strategy, he says, is to sit in a neutral posture, slightly reclined, with the keyboard on a tray above the lap. This position promotes positive blood flow. Workers should then occasionally walk around, stretch and avoid prolonged periods at the desk. The key, he said, is movement, not standing.

"If you stand all day, you will be worse off than if you sit all day," he said.

Proponents of standing in the workplace concede that they don't know how much uprightness is needed to produce the benefits they associate with standing tall. Studies are under way to test dose responses: How much of X is needed to produce Y?

"A lot of those answers aren't available yet, but we're going to get them," said Hamilton, the Pennington researcher.

"It's not a matter of being excessive, ludicrous and insane about standing, but it cuts both ways," says the Mayo Clinic's Levine. "If one were to be sitting all day, compulsively, that is equally absurd as far as the body's construction is concerned. The evidence is in: Sitting all day is harmful for our health."

Half-jokingly, he summed up his stance: "Sitters of the world, unite. It is time to rise up now."

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Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/nation/standing-is-the-new-sitting-for-some-workers-105276648.html#ixzz12tyiygxY

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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.