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How You Can Use Company Culture Decks To Uncover BS And Hypocrisy
Culture decks are a company’s constitution A culture deck is a foundational document, the constitution of a company. They can be the result of a bottom-up input process, like in the case of Zappos’ Culture Book which compiles employees’ testimonials. (To avoid confusion of terms: A culture deck is basically the […]

How to Change Your Company’s Culture With Just a Pen and Paper
Simon Sinek, author of Leaders Eat Last , explains how you can make your employees feel comfortable and safe around anyone. Click here to view original web page at www.inc.com

How to solve silent problems: Don’t avoid conflict; solve it
“It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” — Mickey Mantle The most important role of a leader is to face reality. Understanding what lies ahead is critical to making the right decisions. Accepting reality requires to remain open to new information — especially the one that challenges what we know for sure. Avoidance doesn’t make issues go away — sugarcoating the truth only makes them worse. Surprisingly, denying reality is the main reason CEOs get fired. A team can only solve the problems they talk about. Denial Is dangerous “The health of an organization is measured by the lag time between when you feel it and discuss it.” — Joseph Grenny Freud referred to denial as “the state of knowing but not knowing.” I see this all the time when coaching teams — people know what’s wrong at their organization but they act as if they didn’t. Fear and lack of support have turned everyone silent — rather than speaking up; they operate in denial. Defense mechanisms help us survive losses or dramatic news. We deny something terrible happened because we can’t accept it to be true. If data is showing […]

Do you lack self-confidence, a must-have for business success? Let’s fix it right now
Taking action. Risking. Doing. These things generate a belief that you can successfully perform a skill, and that directly generates confidence. That, in turn, stimulates further action, and the cycle continues. Start with these actions: 1. Stand up with confidence Knowing that a substantial part of confidence is a choice can free you from the myth that you’re stuck at the level of confidence you feel now. As ambitious women, we can choose to expand our confidence. Starting now, you have to put yourself out there. Force yourself if you must, begin small if that’s what it takes, but you must act. Action breeds confidence. Stop brooding and doubting your abilities. End your self-sabotaging thoughts, and start taking action and taking risks. Once you see that you can do something, it bolsters your ability to take another action or face another risk. 2. Speak up If you have an idea or disagree with what’s being said, speak up. Shut down mansplaining and manterrupting and stop allowing men to appropriate your ideas as their own. When you are speaking, do not yield, and call out any man who interrupts you. If necessary, bluntly say “Stop interrupting me and let me finish.” […]

How to break the habit of inaction
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe You know that stare? Well, you actually only realize it in hindsight. When you find yourself gazing out the window, or at the small corner of the wall, or up at the ceiling. You’re so fixated on that one space, as if it were reeling you in, looking to talk to you or maybe even advise you. Once your consciousness comes back, you realize that you were lost in a moment. An imaginative glimmer in time. Something has preoccupied you. Perhaps good, perhaps bad. But it’s preventing you from action. Whatever past idea, struggle, thought, inspiration, missed chance, fear, anxiety or stress that has you captured, know that you may have to modify your process. In order to modify your process, you must begin with changing your habit. As the saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Take writing, for example. Every writer knows what writer’s block is all about. We feel completely stuck, unable to even commit the action to hitting the […]

Why inclusive leaders care about mental health and stress at work.
Inclusive leadership is recognized as a robust approach to successfully managing teams, and increasingly senior leaders are asking for practical ways to build this into their leadership training. But let’s strip away the jargon, what exactly do we mean by being an inclusive leader? An inclusive leader is responsible for managing a team and with a specific emphasis on creating a culture where team members feel they […]

Carpe diem: Seize opportunities and take risks – If you don’t ask, you don’t get
Women are not raised to be brave. We are taught to play it safe, avoid risk and failure, and strive for perfection. From childhood, we’re told to be good little girls, to behave like a lady, to defer to the boys, to secure approval by pleasing the grownups, and to not be bossy, outspoken, pushy, self-aggrandizing, or disruptive. Men are taught to take risk after risk, play hard, and if they fail, to dust themselves off and plunge ahead. Behaviors such as fighting, yelling, shoving, interrupting, or competing fiercely are permitted and even approved of. This kind of gender stereotyping is nowhere more pervasive than in the business world. Professional achievement and all the traits associated with it get placed in the male column. If a man focuses on his career and taking a calculated approach to amassing power, he is living up to society’s stereotypical expectations of men. If a woman behaves in the exact same manner, she has violated stereotypical expectations of women. This bias is at the core of why women are held back by men and why women hold themselves back. It is a massive understatement to say that women and men are not having the […]

9 Ways Being a Happier Person Increases Productivity
As defined in a previous Calendar article, happiness is “both an emotion and a state. It’s a subjective term used to describe a wide-range of positive emotions, such as joy, pride, contentment, and gratitude.” Simply put there are many ways to become a happier person. And being a happier person increases productivity. Regardless of the definition, being happy makes you feel spectacular. It can boost your productivity, which in turn will make you more successful. Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness, further describes happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.” A study by economists at the University of Warwick found that happiness led to a 12 percent boost in productivity, while unhappy workers were 10 percent less productive. The research team stated, “We find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity. Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings.” But, why exactly are happier individuals more productive? It’s because of the following nine reasons. 1. The brain works better when you feel positive. This is based on research found by Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage. “We found that […]

That time marriage advice helped me manage my team
Isn’t it funny how work relationships are sometimes compared to a marriage, like “married to work” or he’s my “work husband”? Sort’ve makes sense, though: you spend a lot of time with your coworkers, and engage in emotional activities like celebrating big wins and debating the best approach to a problem. (We like to call this “sparring.”) It turns out, marriage advice applies to a lot of workplace relationships. Two smart authors with backgrounds in anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, found that appreciation is a key part of healthy relationships in the household and the office. In their book, “5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace,” Dr. Paul White and Dr. Gary Chapman share five “languages” to show appreciation in the workplace: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and a modified version of physical touch. Showing appreciation for your employees yields high dividends. Employees who feel appreciated are more productive, more engaged, and less likely to leave the company. Unfortunately, leaders, particularly in tech, are not known for their high emotional intelligence (EQ). There’s the myth of the lone genius, the “brilliant-but-unbearable” founder, and the assumption that technical skills trump people skills. But it’s just that: a myth. […]

5 reliable ways you can move outside your comfort zone
After 20 years as an investigative agent, I found myself in a comfort zone. Safely ensconced in familiar territory, I balked when asked to be the spokesperson for the FBI in Northern California. It sounded like fun and even a little glamorous because I would be interviewed by local and national news media. So why did I hesitate when offered the job? I would move from being the senior agent on my squad, where I knew everything about my job, to a new situation where I knew absolutely nothing. None of my former skills as an investigator prepared me to handle probing questions from reporters. Over the years, I’d worked counterintelligence, espionage and terrorism cases. But the only time I felt truly terrified was in front of a live TV camera. The FBI needed someone who could come across as witty, credible and polished. I’m the type of person who comes up with the best retorts about 20 minutes after the question is asked. I needed to learn how to think quicker on my feet. I had to learn the ropes from the bottom up. I was tempted to feel humiliated by my lack of experience; instead, I felt humbled […]

Why Mindfulness Is the Ultimate Habit for Success
There are habits you can develop that impact nearly every aspect of your personal and professional success. Running is a great example, because people who run regularly see powerful benefits, like having more energy, thinking more clearly and getting sick less often. I am a runner and a huge proponent of running, but I realize that for many people, regular running will never become part of their lives. It’s a habit that requires a lot of effort, sweat and sometimes even pain. Fortunately there is another habit that impacts nearly every aspect of your success, as well. This habit requires about as much effort as remembering to look both ways before you cross the road and definitely doesn’t require sweating. In fact, it doesn’t even require you to add anything to your schedule. It’s the habit of being mindful. Mindfulness is often described as sitting still, breathing deeply and paying attention to your breath. Although that certainly can be a mindfulness practice, being mindful is simpler and can offer a wider array of benefits. Being mindful is a shift from “being our thinking”—being that blabbering voice in our heads—to being aware of our thinking. This subtle inner shift allows us […]

Here’s why we shouldn’t lie about taking mental health days
One morning in September, Sarah Billington told her manager she had to go home for the day because she was feeling sick. But she didn’t have an upset stomach like she let on — she was on the verge of a breakdown. The author and editor had been struggling with anxiety well before that moment, but according to her candid op-ed in the Huffington Post, she knew in that instant that powering through was no longer a viable option. So she played the sick card and took the day off. “I went home, removing myself from the situation that was making me spiral with anxiety and giving myself a chance to regroup, to curl up in bed for an afternoon and overcome the panic and negative self-talk.” Billington writes. Billington opens up in her story about facing an unsettling matter in her personal life while juggling a slew of stressful tasks at a previous job. She’d had conversations with her then-manager about taking time to prioritize her mental health, but when it came time to request time off, her boss was less than understanding. “She found it inappropriate and unacceptable,” Billington writes. “[I ended up] feeling ashamed and anxious for […]

Can Special Effects Be Special Again?
“You’ll believe a man can fly.” So proclaimed billboards and posters across the nation in 1978, in anticipation of the December release of Richard Donner’s Superman — The Movie. It wasn’t an idle promise. Although the Man of Steel had been depicted in numerous TV shows and cartoons over the years, Donner’s film vowed something special: It would convince us that what we were seeing was actually happening. And the visual effects did, indeed, prove to be remarkable: Aided by a clever front projection technique developed by inventor Zoran Perisic, as well as star Christopher Reeve’s ability to move the way an actual airplane might, Superman set new standards for what could be accomplished onscreen. It was all building, of course, on the earth-shaking work done by George Lucas’s Star Wars just the year before. Special effects had always been around, to be sure; anyone who’d seen a Georges Méliès film from the 1890s knew that they were as old as cinema itself. But together, the space adventure of 1977 and the superhero fantasy of 1978, with an assist perhaps from a certain monster shark movie of 1975, helped establish the supremacy of a new, emerging genre: the visual effects […]

6 steps to take now if you want to change your career path next year
While humans are creatures of habit, they are also inherently curious, and well, most are easily bored. In an age where very few professionals are ‘lifers’ who remain at the same company for their entire lives, more and more are wondering not only what else is out there, but taking actionable steps to discover their passions. Career expert Steve Grant explains changing a career path is oftentimes an important — or mandatory — step to take to achieve success and fulfillment. While it shouldn’t be one that is taken lightly or spontaneously, the pursuit of happiness could be the driving force that propels you to make moves, according to Grant. This doesn’t just mean you’re after a rose-colored perspective from the time you clock in at 9 and leave at 6, but rather, you also desire a more challenging role and you want to be more motivated by doing something you love. Here’s the deal though: Changing careers isn’t an easy process, and may require some unpaid downtime to make it a reality. If this is your professional goal for the upcoming year, experts recommend the actionable steps you should be making right now to prepare yourself for the journey. […]

Job search depression: What it entails and how to get through it
Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota recently sponsored a study that examines how job loss and the hunt for a new job impact the job-seeker’s mental health and well-being. Perhaps the study’s findings don’t come as a surprise; job seekers often experience an emotional low following the loss of a job, feel better when they begin searching for new opportunities, and then experience another decline in mental health when they haven’t found the right position 10-12 weeks later. This predictable shift in mental health is often referred to as job search depression: the hopeless feeling that settles in when you want or need a new job and can’t seem to land one. What makes everything worse is that the job search process is like an emotional rollercoaster, filled with ups and downs and sudden glimmers of hope only to be followed by disappointment – just check out the typical emotional stages of the job search: While there’s no simple solution to the inevitable ups and downs of a job search, there are some things you can actively do to keep your mind and spirit in good shape no matter what the job hunt throws at you. The first […]
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