If you went to a concert to see Lorde and instead Ed Sheeran emerged on stage, you might be pleased to see him, but disappointed because Ed Sheeran is not Lorde and is never going to do the version of Green Light you thought you’d be watching. The fact that Ed Sheeran is not Lorde… Read more »
When Frederick Taylor published his pioneering principles of scientific management in 1912, the repetitive and mundane nature of most jobs required employees to think as little as possible. Breaking down each task into basic components and standardizing workers’ behaviors to eliminate choice and flexibility could help managers turn employees into productive machines, albeit with alienated… Read more »
Although we live in an age that glorifies innovation, there is a big difference between theoretically advocating for it and being able (or willing) to actually implement it. None of this is really new. From Schumpeter’s classic definition of innovation as “creative destruction” to recent portrayals of innovators as disruptors or constructive nonconformist, we have… Read more »
Technology has turned HR into a data-driven game. This does not mean intuition is waning, but rather that a larger number of practitioners are likely to experience some shame or guilt if they admit that they are ‘playing it by ear’. The recent rebranding of talent management as ‘people analytics’ has arguably enhanced the status of… Read more »
Among the various core ingredients of talent and career success, few personal qualities have received more attention in the past decade than emotional intelligence (EQ), the ability to identify and manage your own and others’ emotions. Importantly, unlike most of the competencies that make it into the HR zeitgeist of buzzwords, EQ is no fad…. Read more »
There is a well-known story about a cleaner at NASA who, when asked by JFK what his job was, responded “I’m helping to put a man on the moon.” This anecdote is often used to show how even the most mundane job can be seen as meaningful with the right mindset and under a good… Read more »
*This article was originally published for The Association for British Psychology. Has your empathy and compassion ever led to anxiety about what others think of you? Has your competitive nature ever made enemies? Has your persuasiveness ever led to manipulation? We all possess dark side traits which may have helped us achieve success in… Read more »
In business, sustainable growth is no certainty, and often takes several years to accomplish. Even at Hogan, the business did not experience rapid growth until more than a decade after the company was founded. This is what makes Hogan’s European distributor Awair’s story so incredible. In just five years – three as a Hogan distributor… Read more »
Conventional wisdom suggests that the most charismatic leaders are also the best leaders. Charismatic leaders have, for instance, the ability to inspire others toward higher levels of performance and to instill deep levels of commitment, trust, and satisfaction. As a result, they are generally perceived by their subordinates to be more effective, compared with less charismatic leaders. But our research shows that… Read more »
Externally recruited CEOs are almost seven times more likely to be dismissed within a short tenure than those who are promoted from within the organization. No matter how much a board learns about an outside candidate, executive stakeholders simply have a better understanding of an internal contender’s strengths and weaknesses, especially as they relate to the current… Read more »