In their 2008 Investor’s Guide, Fortune Magazine offered ten tips to help us prevent the heat of the moment from melting our better judgment. The tips form an acronym – Think Twice – and are worth keeping in mind no matter what you’re thinking about or what decision you’re trying to make. Take the Global View. Always keep an eye on where ...

Every year, I get asked by one media outlet or another how to handle the office holiday party.  This year, I decided to share the advice I and others provided to the Wall Street Journal last weekend:   “We spend so much time communicating on Blackberries and e-mail, the office party is a rare opportunity to really meet the people who ...

A few days ago, I was scheduled to be on a local NPR radio show with one of my biggest and longstanding influencers, Bruce Tulgan.  For those of you who might not know, Bruce is internationally recognized as a leading expert on young people in the workplace and has his own consulting firm, Rainmaker Thinking, that has trained employees in ...

Continuing my investigation into I/O Psychology, this week I’m reporting on Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis in the 1970s.  Groupthink occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because of group pressures.  Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize ...

Thanks to Seth Godin and ExecPundit for sharing this insightful piece titled “Note from Boss to Employees.”  Some of the highlights: I am sometimes under enormous pressure from upper management; pressure that you seldom see. Anything that you can do to make my job easier will be greatly appreciated. Your interests are important, but ...

[ImageAttachment] A topic that’s been coming up a lot in my discussions with twenty and thirty-something employees is empowerment.  Today’s younger workers want to come into a job and have the autonomy to take hold of projects and run with them self-sufficiently.  However, their baby boomer managers, more often than not, hold them back ...

I still remember the day six months ago when a good friend of mine called me up to tell me about this new junior-level employee she wanted to hire.  I had never heard my friend, the director of the tourism division at a global advertising agency, sound this jazzed about a potential new employee.    Apparently, at twenty-four, the ...

A wonderful post from Heather Mundell at lifeatwork cites a recent article by Creating Passionate Users’ author Kathy Sierra, and I can tell you that from my perspective, this one really hit a nerve.  In the piece, Knocking the Exuberance Out of Employees, Sierra says that most companies say they want to hire bold, smart, creative, and ...