MSLOC Community

Author: Eleanor Barkhorn March 14, 2013 Shared by: Valencia Ray, MSLOC Student Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In is full of quotable lines: "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"; "As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home"; and so on. There's one line in particular that jumped out at me and I felt compelled to follow up on: "As a man gets more successful, he is better liked by men and women, and as a woman gets more successful, she is less liked by men and women."

Shared by Ashley Punzalan, MSLOC Student "I had an epiphany the other day. I was in the middle of marking up a memo on U.S. drone policy while simultaneously ordering a custom-decorated cake for my daughter's sixth grade musical cast party and planning my remarks for a roundtable on women in national security. Suddenly, it hit me: I hate Sheryl Sandberg. It's not because she's so rich, or because she's the COO of Facebook, or because she has gleaming, meticulously coiffed hair. True, Facebook is the Internet equivalent of Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, and my own hair will never approach the glossy perfection of Sheryl Sandberg's. I have nothing against rich people, who sometimes fund my projects or buy me lunch at fancy restaurants. Rich people, I love you!"

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. "

Shared by Maggie Lewis, MSLOC Instructor and Alumna "Culture is critically important to business success around the world. That was the response from an overwhelming 84 percent of the more than 2,200 participants in our 2013 Culture and Change Management Survey. The survey, conducted by the Katzenbach Center at Booz & Company, was undertaken to better understand global perceptions of culture, its impact on change, and the main barriers to successful, sustainable transformation. In addition to culture's critical role in the overall success of an organization, survey responses suggest strong correlations between the success of change programs and whether culture was leveraged in the change process. Our findings point to using a holistic, culture-oriented approach to change for the best results. Despite its critical role, however, there is a disparity between the way culture is seen by companies and the way it is treated. Less than half of participants report that their companies effectively manage culture, and more than half say a major culture overhaul is needed. How can companies close this gap, and begin to effectively leverage the power of culture to achieve more sustainable transformations?"

Shared by Brynn Harrington, MSLOC alumna, on Twitter "Gallup has found that one of the most important decisions companies make is simply whom they name manager. Yet our analysis suggests that they usually get it wrong. In fact, Gallup finds that companies fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for the job 82% of the time. Bad managers cost businesses billions of dollars each year, and having too many of them can bring down a company. The only defense against this massive problem is a good offense, because when companies get these decisions wrong, nothing fixes it. Businesses that get it right, however, and hire managers based on talent will thrive and gain a significant competitive advantage."

Shared by Kim Bayma, MSLOC Student, on Twitter "The ranks of businesses that are certified B Corps are growing quickly. In 2012, when B Lab released its first annual "Best Businesses for the World" list, there were already more than 500 firms that had committed to meeting the nonprofit certifying organization's high social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency standards. By 2013, about 650 companies had achieved B Corp status, including well-known brands like Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's. This year has seen even bigger growth, with a total of 970 companies across 60 industries in 32 countries committed to one goal: Redefining business "success" as being about more than just about making the biggest profit."

Written by Peggy Troyer, MSLOC Alumna March 18, 2014 "One of my responsibilities, as my company's Human Resource Partner, is to help managers make the right decisions on how they should reward their employees during our annual compensation review cycle. Over the years, a common assumption my managers may come to me for advice is, "How could anyone stay motivated to work if I don't give them a raise? Everyone must get something or they will surely leave." Is there more to a job than just money? Lately the people who have been awarded 5-8% pay increases have been the ones to leave our organization. In one recent exit interview, a high-performing employee said, "For some reason, I get paid exceedingly well for what I do, and though it was nice, I just didn't understand why the company won't use the money to hire more help." Interestingly, why do people still make the decision to stay with an organization after receiving no increase, while others leave after receiving an 11% increase in compensation and rave reviews?"

IDEO article about what "design sensibilities" are and how to develop them.

Debate about the definition of Design Thinking. Great resources/ideas shared in the comments too.

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 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.""

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.)"

By: Suzanne Lucas Date: March 5, 2014 Shared by: Zoe Hoeppner, MSLOC Student Description: "Up to 70 percent of recruitment is unnecessary, she claims. So what is necessary? Here are seven tips:"

By Beth Kuhel March 8, 2014 "If you want to get hired and stay hired you need to know how hiring managers think. Since Google is setting the standard for attracting, hiring (and paying) top talent, examining and understanding their hiring standards and practices could help you even if you have no interest in working there."

Author: Nicole Carter Date: March 11, 2014 Shared by: Andee Weinfurter Description: It's the fourth day of SXSW Interactive, and though the throngs of geeks and enthusiasts are getting tired, it didn't stop a handful of them from lining up to see Patricia Korth-McDonnell, partner and managing director of design firm Huge, talk about chaos and creativity.

By Maria Konnikova March 8, 2014 Shared by Jeff Merrell, MSLOC Associate Director ""I HATE quotation. Tell me what you know," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal one spring day in 1849. He was talking about a very specific tendency. When we're faced with an issue that's meant to be thought provoking (in this particular case, immortality), we reach for the easy way out. "I notice," he writes, "that as soon as writers broach this question, they begin to quote." Quotation becomes a way not to add depth to your thinking, but to avoid thinking in the first place. Welcome to the world of the Internet. What would Emerson have made of it? Examined from one perspective, it's a place that provides endless fodder for the type of anti-thought he despised. He would have shuddered to find himself quoted and requoted millions of times (make that millions plus one), often with little understanding of who he was or what he stood for. Decontextualized knowledge - snippets that stream past as links, tweets, posts, memes - dominates. "

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."

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 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.