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What really sets the best managers above the rest? It's their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives-consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly. As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees' inner work lives. But it's forward momentum in meaningful work-progress-that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day. The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts-events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy-and (2) nourishers-interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality. Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people's performance. Teresa Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration and a Director of Research at Harvard Business School. Michelle Bavester, MSLOC student recommends this book. She says: "The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile? Her book has a checklist of sorts for making work meaningful and igniting engagement in employees. There's a lot of real-life examples from her research that she uses to illustrate her points as well. It's a great read!"

By Aliah D. Wright in SHRM MSLOC alumnus, Judah Kurtz, is quoted in this article. Embrace the Inevitable For any of this to work, companies are going to have to take a leap of faith and embrace working in new ways. "To communicate more extensively and effectively, embracing technology inside the enterprise to leverage that is going to become that much more essential," said Judah Kurtz, senior manager of the talent solutions practice and an executive coach in the executive coaching practice at BPI group in Chicago. "If you can understand the knowledge and expertise of people throughout the organization … [they] are the ones who are going to be able to share information and documents and best practices and data or whatever ends up becoming an opportunity for us to have this back-and-forth dialogue," he said. Experts say that's when the real benefits begin.

Renetta McCann, Leo Burnett Chief Talent Officer and MSLOC alumnae reminds us that at one point in time, those who worked were looked down upon. Now, we wear our jobs on our sleeves like badges of honor. When did our views on work change, and how can we reframe what's expected from an office environment to improve our professional experiences?

March 2, 2014 Shared by Keeley Sorokti, MSLOC alumna "Over the last few years, there has been an enormous amount of industry discussion about how the digital world is changing the way we work. To any reasonable observer, the ways that we communicate, interact, and collaborate with each other are all in the midst of profound change. At least the why seems fairly clear. At at high level, there appear to be three major root causes for why collaboration - the very core of how people come together and function as a business - is in the midst of reinvention: Hierarchical management styles break down in the face of the inherent complexity and scale of the modern business environment. New digital tools have put us in constant and direct contact with nearly every person in the developed world at virtually no cost or effort. Thus businesses are now primarily subject to the power laws of networks, rather than the legacy rules of business. There has been a sustained shift in the power of creation, as the edges of our organizations and marketplaces now have readily in hand as much - and often more - productive power and reach than our institutions. The obvious cause is today's pervasive global platforms for self-expression (yes, by this I largely mean social media, but also all forms of digital connectedness.)"

Author: Karen Bonsignore Date: NA Shared by: Sandy Schwan, MSLOC Alum on Evolving Strategies blog Organizational leaders must fully understand the consequences of disengagement, and devote attention and resources to initiatives that will increase and sustain employee engagement. Employees are free to leave their jobs to find more fulfilling work, or a better work environment, or even a more supportive boss. However, building an engaged workforce is the responsibility of a leader: from the top-down. The reason is that while there are known factors that can drive or derail engagement, regular employees are generally not in control of company policies and practices. Consequently, the buck begins at the top.

Author: Chris Boyce February 11, 2014 Shared by Michelle Bavester, MSLOC Student If wellness programs aren't on your "must have" list, you may want to reconsider. The evidence is mounting. Companies committed to workforce wellness - particularly those committed to total quality of life at work and at home - are likely to be your best bet.

By Eric Jaffe Shared by Keeley Sorokti, MSLOC alumna "By now we're all familiar with the stereotypes of different generations in the workplace. Boomers are workaholics who respect authority and have a lifelong loyalty to their company. Generation X employees prize a work-life balance. Millennials float from job to job and flaunt managerial authority and are too busy texting to care what you think of that. Given the popular consensus about office generational gaps--and the abundance of advice columns on bridging them--you'd think evidence for these traits would be strong. That's not at all the case, says management scholar John Bret Becton of University of Southern Mississippi. "We're always looking for a reason why people are different," Becton tells Co.Design. "But at least half of the research shows there's really not a lot of difference.""

Shared by Ryan Smerek, MSLOC Faculty "Public policy expert Anne-Marie Slaughter made waves with her 2012 article, "Why women still can't have it all." But really, is this only a question for women? Here Slaughter expands her ideas and explains why shifts in work culture, public policy and social mores can lead to more equality - for men, women, all of us. "

Herminia Ibarra (2004) Required reading for 2013, Hudson Institute

Gallup Business Journal by Robyn Reilly January 7, 2014 Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Managers everywhere can help solve this problem -- and reap the benefits of higher employee engagement. Shared by Sonya Perez-Lauterbach, MSLOC student via Twitter

Purposeful organization through social technology Shared by Jessica Catz, MSLOC alum via Twitter on January 7, 2014

Using meditation in the classroom to improve focus. Summarizes research on multi-tasking with technology. Includes reading recommendations.

Author: Heidi Grant Halvorson February 14, 2014 Shared by, Diane Knopke, MSLOC Student The good news (and its very good news) is that you can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy. Figuring out which strategy to use depends on why you are procrastinating in the first place:

Andreas von der Heydt February 2, 2014 Shared by Michelle Bavester There was a strong agreement that in most organizations - and although people spend a substantial part of their lives working - a vast majority of teams and employees are not engaged at all. And as a result such organizations do not perform at their best. Let me share with you the main points we touched upon . . .

Author: Jena McGregor Feb 19, 2014 Shared by: Andee Weinfurter (MSLOC Student)

By Luis Suarez February 21, 2014 in CMS Wire Here we are, 2014 and still wondering what the future of collaboration is - as if we didn't know already. Despite all efforts to trump it or get rid of it altogether in favor of other noble concepts like cooperation, the hard truth is that collaboration has always been here. And it will continue to be here for many years to come. It's a human trait. It's our capability of getting work done together. Effectively. So why is it that even today we are still questioning its inherent value within the business world? Is it because of technology? Or certain business processes? Maybe it's the people after all? In reality, it's none of these. It's because of Human Resources and its inability to get it right by empowering knowledge workers to excel at what they already do: collaborate sharing their knowledge more openly and transparently.

Forbes By Senia Maymin, Ph.D. and Margaret H. Greenberg March 3, 2014 Shared by Ashley Boehm Punzalan, MSLOC Student "One of our clients, Kevin, had a goal to complete a redesign of his website by the end of the third quarter. However, as a business owner, he never seemed to find the time to focus on it while juggling dozens of other responsibilities. "At the end of each day, it just falls off my to-do list because more urgent things pop up," he told us. As executive coaches, we work with highly successful people like Kevin who are usually quite good at getting things done and getting good results. But … sometimes these same clients find it hard to achieve their more strategic or longer-term goals due to day-to-day demands. Usually, they are missing just one ingredient. The following study gives a hint of the missing puzzle piece."

By Teresa Torres, MSLOC Student on her Product Talk blog July 12, 2012 There's been a lot of confusion around brainstorming these days. First, there was the New Yorker article by Jonah Lehrer claiming that brainstorming doesn't work. Scott Berkun wrote a rebuttal arguing Lehrer's logic was flawed. Twitter exploded with comments. I'm going to try to make sense of it all.

By Jeff Haden Shared by Catherine Suer, MSLOC Student "I love setting goals. Unfortunately, my goals don't always love me back. I've tried using silence to accomplish a goal, and I've tried to sneak up on big goals, and although those strategies work, they're hardly foolproof. Fortunately James Clear, an entrepreneur and guy who thinks a lot about goals, habits, and success, has a much better approach to achieving almost any goal--and it's an approach anyone can use."

11/09/2013 by Tom Agan Shared by Andee Weinfurter, MSLOC Student, on Twitter - @andeew38