After another fascinating weekend at UEL learning about positive psychology applications – in the workplace, school and community – we have learnt how important it is to have a varied and engaging series of interventions to have real impact. This is because of the hedonic treadmill – people get ‘used to’ undertaking gratitude diaries, or … Continued
Martin Seligman, the ‘godfather’ of Positive Psychology, has found that: – optimistic people deliver 35% more sales than pessimists – optimistic people are less likely to quit at the end of the first year than pessimists. (Seligman and Schulman, 1986) The attached LOTR questionnaire provides a measure of your level of optimism. So just how … Continued
Barbara Fredrickson on the link between positive language and business performance: “We go into companies and transcribe every word that is said in their business meetings. We have done this in 60 companies. One third of the companies are flourishing economically, one-third are doing okay and one-third are failing. We code each sentence for positive … Continued
In Linda Gratton’s new book, The Shift: the future of work is already here, she talks about the forces that will shape work and careers in the future and what we should do to build a career that will stand the test of time. Her ten top tips are here: 1. Don’t be fooled into walking … Continued
As some of you may know, I’ve started an MSC in Applied Positive Psychology. As part of my reading I came across a very interesting piece of empirical research about goal setting. Of course, being a naive student I forget to footnote it! What was interesting about it was that the research found that the … Continued
During tough times it is often HR who are ‘cut’, that is unless they have particular skills in redundancy. This is particularly true in the ‘interesting’ end of HR – leadership development, OD – the areas in which I predominantly work. Here are 4 ways in which L&D, OD and HR more generally can make … Continued
Of late, much has been written (and spoken) about the level of risk (for instance, that taken on by banks) and what is a ‘healthy’ level of risk for an organisation. The following is a heavily truncated report by the Hay Group which talks about the mismatch between the level of risk organisations are prepared … Continued
Have you ever thought about the best way to get what you want? How is it that others around you seem to get what they want and you don’t? As a leader, what is the best way to get your team to do what you want? There’s a really great way to do this which … Continued
This article appeared in HR magazine recently and made me pause and think, given I’m an advocate of competency based interviewing. Two-thirds of candidates welcome obscure lines of questioning as part of the job interview process, giving businesses the opportunity to shake up their interview processes in the tight war for talent, according to recruitment … Continued
For those who work in HR and, more to the point, leadership development, it is often difficult to quantify the ROI on leadership development. Leading management consulting firm, the Hay Group, recently identified 6 conditions to ensure leadership development initiatives deliver measurable benefits, alongwith 4 common pitfalls. It seems they could be useful for also … Continued
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