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During the past decade, business analytics platforms have evolved from supporting IT and finance functions to enabling business users across the enterprise. But many firms find themselves struggling to take advantage of its promise. We’ve found three main obstacles to realizing analytics’ full value, and all of them are related to people, not technology: the organization’s structure, culture, and approach to problem solving.
Via The Learning Factor
Every morning at the construction site down the street from my office, the day starts with a familiar hum. It’s the sound of the regular drone scan, when a small black quadcopter flies itself over the site in perfect lines, as if on rails. The buzz overhead is now so familiar that workers no longer look up as the aircraft does its work. It’s just part of the job, as unremarkable as the crane that shares the air above the site. In the sheer normalness of this — a flying robot turned into just another piece of construction equipment — lies the real revolution.
Via The Learning Factor
While it can be difficult to become a great leader and to achieve great things, practicing great leadership is actually quite easy. There is a tendency to overcomplicate or overthink what leadership is, but actually, leadership can be very simple. I have worked with teams all over the world, from dozens of cultures, and from different generations, Baby Boomers to Millennials, and I have found that if you provide these four simple things your team will appreciate you, follow you, and achieve great results.
Via The Learning Factor
Think about the workplace 10 years ago: The first iPhone wouldn’t be released until July 2007. There probably wasn’t “an app for that.” Open floor plans hadn’t yet become a privacy-busting phenomenon. And people weren’t obsessed with “the cloud.” Certainly, smart devices, cloud-based platforms, and the way we work have been transformed over the past decade. We’re changing jobs more often—now, more often because we want to. And the breakneck speed of technology is once again transforming the way we will work.
Via The Learning Factor
I’m accustomed to handling clients who are at a crossroads in their lives and are looking for change—after all, I’m a career coach. So this usually involves guiding clients through some pretty heavy soul-searching to help them find the sort of truly fulfilling work that we all deserve. This also means many of my clients are in an indecisive state at the outset—that’s to be expected. But I don’t think I’ve had a more indecisive client than Kevin. When I asked Kevin what sort of career he truly wanted to pursue, he blanked. I asked him what he enjoys doing and what he’s really good at, and he could never seem to articulate a direct answer.
Via The Learning Factor
Let's call this call this curator friend Cynthia. Cynthia wrote back, “Two other curators worked with me on this (and may join us!), so I can’t take full credit.” She asked that I instead reference her with the significantly less exciting descriptor, “one of the curators of this exhibition." She was understandably hesitant to get all the credit and wanted to make clear that there were other people involved with the exhibition. While accurate, the new version was far less descriptive and complimentary than what I’d suggested. Feel familiar? The balancing act women navigate surrounding self promotion can be exhausting.
Via The Learning Factor
One side effect of working at top software companies is the constant threat of attrition. People are highly valued and highly compensated, but there are always companies that will pay more. Engineers are regularly contacted by headhunters and by recruiters at other top companies trying to lure them away. If successful, this pays the new company double-dividends: it increases the hiring company's staff while depleting their competitor.
Via The Learning Factor
Email is taking a lot of flak lately. And why not? We're inundated with it. It's cold and impersonal. People abuse it passive-aggressively for their own political agendas. And it can be --to be frank -- addictive. Yet, no matter how much we gripe about it, and whatever options may be out there like Slack, email is here to stay. For now, at least. But we can all do email better. Much better. I've been witness to --and often the victim of --a range of email offenses in my working life. And yet, even today, I see people continue to commit the same email offenses that I thought would have become forgotten or even outlawed by now. So in the interest of raising awareness around these offenses, and with the hope that we can see them committed far less frequently, here are five difficult and uncomfortable things that you should never, ever put into your emails at work. Especially if want to build --and keep -- the relationships that matter to you most.
Via The Learning Factor
88 percent of employees who participated in the 2016 SHRM Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Survey, indicated that they were satisfied with their current job. This marks the highest level of satisfaction over the past ten years. Although there are many reasons that contributed to this statistic, "respectful treatment of employees at all levels" was at the top of the list for the second year in a row. It even beat out major players like pay, benefits and job security. (Did anyone else start singing a little Aretha Franklin?) I'm not sure why I was surprised by this stat. It makes sense that if you're spending the majority of your waking hours somewhere that interpersonal relationships and culture would be important. It's also no surprise that when the participants were specifically asked about engagement, 77 percent indicated "relationships with their co-workers" was the most important. Let's take a look at how you can cultivate the two biggest factors of employee happiness at work.
Via The Learning Factor
There’s a Czech proverb that says, “As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being.” Like other multilingual speakers, I’ve often thought of myself as a different person whenever I speak a different language. But this feeling has less to do with the structure of the languages themselves than with the personal associations I have with each one. Until I started working at Waze, my use of Spanish was limited to home. So it’s always reminded me of warm meals, family time, soccer, and parties. My use of English, meanwhile, has been the de facto language of my professional life. I may feel like different people, but the reality is that I’m the same me, using different idioms depending on the context, and my associations flow from that experience–but not the other way around.
Via The Learning Factor
Visionary leadership and great management achieves the best results. Seems obvious right? Then why do so many companies get it wrong, especially during times of needed change? There are core fundamental differences between leadership and management that apply to any team or organization, but the focus of this article is to explore the strengths of each as they apply to leading organizational change. Generally speaking, management is a set of systems and processes designed for organizing, budgeting, staffing and problem solving to achieve the desired results of an organization. Leadership defines the vision, mission and what the "win" looks like in the future. It inspires the team to embody the beliefs and behaviors necessary to take the actions needed to achieve those results. The most successful transformations occur when strong visionary leadership converges with great management. Both are required to define a clear path, plan accordingly and see the mission plan through to fulfillment.
Via The Learning Factor
How The Activity Learning Theory Works Vygotsky’s earlier concept of mediation, which encompassed learning alongside others (Zone of Proximal Development) and through interaction with artifacts, was the basis for Engeström’s version of Activity Theory (known as Scandinavian Activity Theory). Engeström’s approach was to explain human thought processes not simply on the basis of the individual, but in the wider context of the individual’s interactions within the social world through artifacts, and specifically in situations where activities were being produced. In Activity Theory people (actors) use external tools (e.g. hammer, computer, car) and internal tools (e.g. plans, cognitive maps) to achieve their goals. In the social world there are many artifacts, which are seen not only as objects, but also as things that are embedded within culture, with the result that every object has cultural and/or social significance. Tools (which can limit or enable) can also be brought to bear on the mediation of social interaction, and they influence both the behavior of the actors (those who use the tools) and also the social structure within which the actors exist (the environment, tools, artifacts). For further reading, here is Engeström’s own overview of 3 Generations of Activity Theory development. The first figure shows Second Generation AT as it is usually presented in the literature.
Via Gust MEES
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Mindfulness is paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment. So if you’re aware that your mind is wandering, you’re halfway to a successful mindfulness practice. The other half of mindfulness is gently returning your attention back to the here and now. But this doesn’t mean you have to yank your misbehaving mind back to reality. Instead, think of it as a compassionate return to consciousness. Picture a feather on the ground, lifted up by a gust of wind and then floating back down to rest on the pavement. Wandering. Awareness. Return.
Via The Learning Factor
In a national report released today, two out of three adults surveyed said they want to spend time with people who aren’t their age, while three in four wish there were more opportunities to get to know different age groups. Why, then, aren’t there more intergenerational programs and initiatives?
Via The Learning Factor
How should teams of experts working on knowledge-intensive projects be structured? Should they be hierarchical? Or will flexible, self-organized groups perform better? Teams often struggle with how to get the most value from the members’ expertise, to minimize conflict, to integrate their diverse expertise, and to leverage it during all phases of a project. The traditional approach is to put the person with the most experience and expertise in charge — for example, a head coach or a chief programmer. The assumption is that this person has the expertise to make the best decisions about how to allocate tasks and responsibilities. Teams that adopt this model feature a rigid hierarchy, whereby final decisions are centralized through this single, formally designated individual.
Via The Learning Factor
Each morning from 8:30 to 9:05 AM at our company’s headquarters, in San Francisco, we serve free breakfast to every employee. And I’m not talking about stale muffins and dry bagels. Today I ate a sloppy joe, cheesy scrambled eggs, home fries, crispy bacon, and sausage links. Healthy, I know. Tomorrow, I’m definitely going to grab a yogurt and some fruit. And don’t forget all the vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. After all, this is California. I know what you’re thinking. Free food is the cost of admission to the Silicon Valley tech scene. Our startup, Pivotal, calls the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood home, alongside companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, Adobe, Slack, Salesforce, and Uber. So, of course, Pivotal serves free, catered meals. It’s just expected.
Via The Learning Factor
Job hunting takes different forms at different times in your life. Did you take a new job six months ago that isn’t working out, and are you ready to fire up your search all over again? That’s fine, just don’t use the same resume and cover letter. Since you’re hitting the job market so soon after getting out of it, you’ll need to change up your approach. It cuts the other way, too; your job search will be different if you’ve spent a long time at one company and start looking again for the first time in years. How employers see you depends a lot on how long or short your job tenure has been.
Via The Learning Factor
One in four American adults went to a healthcare provider for neck and back pain, according to a 2016 Gallup study. In addition, the report found 65% of adults sought care for neck and back pain at some point in their lives. When you factor in how many adults are hunched over computer desks, sitting for extended periods of time at work and bending their neck to read mobile devices, these statistics aren’t so surprising. Just about everyone has been told to “stand up straight” at some point in their lives—and it turns out that mom was right. Posture is a key element to good health. It is right up there with eating healthy, getting enough sleep and exercising. Bad posture can lead to back, neck and jaw pain, breathing difficulty, balance issues and joint problems. A recent study also found that good posture can improve your mental wellbeing.
Via The Learning Factor
Life isn’t linear. No matter how well thought out your plans, they’ll eventually collide with a reality you didn’t plan on. Learning to "lean into the curves" when life doesn’t unfold as you’d hoped will help spare you untold stress, bounce back faster and emerge better off. Here’s five ways to do just that.
Via The Learning Factor
One of the most frustrating aspects of job searching is feeling like you’ve already reached out to everyone you know. You’ve asked every contact you can possibly think of if you could buy them a cup of coffee—from your first boss to that former co-worker you didn't even particularly like. Yet, you’re still just as far away from a new role as you were when you started. I know it sounds too good to be true, but there is another way to expand your network, meet new people and make meaningful connections.
Via The Learning Factor
From spelling and grammatical errors to flowery language and absent keywords, there’s certainly no shortage of resume mistakes you could make. But there is one surefire kiss of death for most job seekers: submitting a two- or, dare we say it, three-page resume. “If you’re fresh out of college, you may have a few internships under your belt, but by no means should you have a two-page resume,” says Christopher Ward, founder at Ward Resumes.
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Friday, March 3 is Employee Appreciation Day – here are ways you can show your thanks.
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I have been writing a series of articles on culture-enabled organizational transformation. Much of my philosophies on this subject are derived from learnings on the battlefield as a Navy SEAL, and in the boardroom as an entrepreneur. There are three phases to my transformation model, each with several components: building the change culture, preparing for the change battle, and winning the change fight. Once a company is well-prepared for change and high levels of trust and accountability have been woven into the fabric of the organization's culture, only then can they start preparing for the change battle. Behaviors and mindsets must adapt and a plan of attack developed and communicated. The first phase of winning the change fight is to empower the team and enlist as much participation as possible at all levels.
Via The Learning Factor
Leadership isn’t learned in any textbook. It is born in the trenches where results are achieved, conflict occurs, people engage and pain is experienced. Every day is different. Each day teaches you something new. My schooling as a leader covered more than 12,000 days; here are five key lessons they taught me.
Via Marc Wachtfogel, Ph.D.
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The challenges are organizational.