The Key Phrase To Manage Negative Feelings in the Workplace
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
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Here's the key phrase to trigger your memory when you are trying to remember how to dampen the impact of negative feelings in the workplace: ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.
Sure, it may seem obvious now that you know it, but it took brain scientists untold thousands of dollars to show through special brain imagery that when people put their feelings into words, it puts them at ease. The happy place turns out to be the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.
You can save your projects untold thousands of dollars in this horrible global economy which has begat highly stressful workplaces. Just enable workers to talk about their trials and tribulations. They don't have to talk to you, just to someone - your employee assistance program, each other, significant others, other workers in similar circumstances. Tell them it is important that they talk to someone. Explain it in a way that is consistent with your organizational culture, which probably means that you don't want to mention "ventrolateral prefrontal cortex" unless you're in the health care field. Maybe not even there. Just tell them it works.
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Posted on: February 18, 2009 09:58 PM
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One Thing To Do To Reduce Procrastination
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
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If only we could do one thing that would help workers and team leads get started right away on their tasks rather than wait. Sean McRea at Germany's University of Konstanz and his crack team may have something for us, now that they have shed some light on procrastination.
After a series of three studies, the team concluded that people act faster when they are instructed with concrete terms, as opposed to abstract terms. Guided by abstract information, on the other hand, people tend put off starting tasks, even when they pay a penalty for procrastination.
So what's the bottom line? Whenever you provide instructions or guidance for a task, make sure you prepare and make the guidance clear and concrete. Eliminate abstract language. (Once you have workers thinking abstractly, you set them up for procrastination.) Make concrete language a standard in your project for instructions and guidance documents.
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Posted on: February 16, 2009 07:53 PM
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The Candidate Has a Great Personality!
Categories:
Worker Selection
Categories: Worker Selection
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Is high job satisfaction what leads to a high-performing employee? Not necessarily, according to Nathan Bowling, Ph.D., psychology at Wright State. His recent study shows that satisfaction and performance are correlated, but high job satisfaction does not cause high performance.
Bowling says that both are the result of personality characteristics. Examples of personality characteristics are:
So in your selection process for any job, make sure you evaluate personality characteristics as they apply to the day-to-day work in that job. And, if you have to find someone from elsewhere in the organization to take a job in your project, check with the previous manager and coworkers to confirm the candidate's personality characteristics are compatible with your job.
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Posted on: February 12, 2009 10:13 PM
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Happy Campers and Organizational Outcomes
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Given everything that you have to do as a project manager, should you take special action to make sure your employees are happy? You're not running some sort of good vibrations camp.
According to Thomas Wright, Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in Business Administration and professor of management at Kansas State University, happiness is a valuable tool for maximizing organizational outcomes (that's academic speak for meeting deadlines on budget with the expected quality).
Luckily for us all, there is no singing and hand-holding involved. But make sure that you "reduce the negative impact of stressful jobs":
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Posted on: February 10, 2009 10:03 PM
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Why You Can't Discuss Salaries at Work
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
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Faithful reader Naomi C. (not her real last name) wanted me to comment on the newly signed pay discrimination law. This particular law basically changes the acceptable timing of initiating a pay discrimination suit. Now the deadline is related to each check you get rather than when the salary started. So even if your company does a great job of covering up blatant gender-based pay discrimination, you have more time to detect that problem and take them to court or seek a settlement.
In larger firms, compensation analysts have designed state-of-the-art systems that define pay grades and associated performance expectations. The standardization of "job families" has made the practice of consistent pay easier in this day and age. In addition, HR specialists are helping managers avoid discriminatory practices with training and guidance. Still compensation analysts have to "expand" the job band salary ranges for flexibility requested by management. This provides opportunity for miscreants.
So I suspect in the coming years we will be fascinated (if not surprised) at news of firms that will be brought into court and lose court cases, or pay settlements "without admitting guilt." You may even see more emphasis from managers that it is not acceptable to discuss salaries with fellow employees. And now you'll know why.
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Posted on: February 06, 2009 06:53 AM
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