#Coaching

Mar 8, 2012

A Positive Mindset and Happy Attitude Help You Succeed at Work

In his book, “The Happiness Advantage” (2010) Shawn Achor asserts that happy employees can actually help improve an organization’s bottom line. Achor says we often think that if we work hard and become successful, then we’ll be happy. But, he argues (convincingly I might add) that the formula is backward. Instead of success first and happiness second, it should be happiness first, and then success. In a related Harvard Business Review article, Achor (2012) cites a meta-analys

Oct 4, 2011

Bosses and Powerful People Do Not Listen

A recent study found that the more power people have, the more likely they will discount advice due to an elevated sense of confidence in their own judgment. Across four studies, researchers found that “the psychological experience of power elevates confidence and exacerbates the already strong tendency for individuals to overweight their own initial judgments and insufficiently incorporate input of others.” Furthermore, the researchers discovered that “power can lead people

Aug 29, 2011

Steve Jobs Resigns – The Failure to Disengage and Price of Workaholism

Steve Jobs, the charismatic and visionary founder of Apple Computers has resigned (August 24, 2011). Not to worry, he’s now assumed the Chairman of the Board role at Apple. Last year, I wrote a post titled “The Dangers of Charismatic Leaders” in which I talked about Steve Jobs and the virtues and vices that characterize a charismatic leader. Well, the day has come when he’s handing over his CEO duties. As Jobs wrote in a letter to the Apple board of directors and Apple commun

Aug 19, 2011

The Three Burnout Subtypes

[NOTE: This post was updated November 2016] Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job, and is defined by the three dimensions of exhaustion (overwhelming exhaustion), cynicism (cynicism and detachment), and inefficacy (a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment) (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; Maslach, Leiter, & Schaufeli, 2009). More broadly, Maslach and Leiter (2005) said burnout includes losing three things:

Jun 15, 2011

Failure is a Better Teacher than Success

“Failure is not fatal. Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. It should challenge us to new heights of accomplishments, not pull us to new depths of despair. From honest failure can come valuable experience.” -William Arthur Ward, American author and teacher We prize success over failure. You see articles and book titles with the words “success” or “succeed” splattered on bookstore shelves. However, research shows that when it comes to learning, failure may just b

May 18, 2011

Information Overload: Too Much Information Becomes Noise

[Note: This post was updated January 2021 for freshness & clarity.] In “Information Overload: Causes, Symptoms and Solutions,” an article for the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Learning Innovations Laboratory (LILA), Joseph Ruff says that we are bombarded with so much data that we’re on information overload. Simply put, information overload is when our ability to process information has passed its limit, and further attempts to process information or make accurate dec

Apr 4, 2011

Multitasking Doesn’t Work

[NOTE: This post was updated January 2017] Multitasking is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. But it’s important to understand what it is and why it doesn’t work. Multitasking is when we juggle multiple things (thoughts and actions) at the same time. For example, people multitask when they drive and talk on their cell phones (Donatelle, 2009). It may surprise you to hear, however, that people who multitask are actually less productive than those who just concent

Feb 14, 2011

Creating an Ethical Organizational Culture

[NOTE: This post was updated October 2016] “Having an organizational culture that emphasizes ethical behavior can cut down on misbehavior of organizations. Research shows that whether an organization develops a culture that emphasizes doing the right thing even when it is costly comes down to whether leaders, starting with the CEO, consider the ethical consequences of their actions. Leaders with a moral compass set the tone when it comes to ethical dilemmas” (Truxillo, Bauer,

Feb 5, 2011

What Happens When Leaders Set High Expectations?

Some of you may have heard that when leaders set high expectations followers rise to meet them. Well, there’s actually a concept called the Pygmalion Effect which says that the lower the expectations, the worse people do. In an interesting experiment (Eden & Shani, 1982) in a 15-week combat command course, trainees were matched on aptitude and then randomly put in 1 of 3 groups. Each group had different expectations, high, average, and no specified expectations. But 4 days be

Jan 14, 2011

Less Talk, More Action-The PAR Technique

In “Good Boss, Bad Boss” Robert Sutton talks about a problem many of us see in our workplaces — too much talking and not enough doing. Sutton says too often people (this includes bosses and their subordinates) know what needs to be done but rather than doing it, they talk (hold endless meetings), write about it, and study it to death. Professor Sutton shares about a restaurant chain that hired a consulting firm to create a detailed plan to improve their operations. During the

Nov 5, 2010

Workplace Incivility Causes Mistakes and Even Kills

Research on workplace incivility (for example, emotional abuse or rudeness in the workplace) revealed that if someone is rude to you at work or if you witness rudeness you are more likely to make mistakes. In The No Asshole Rule, Bob Sutton shared that nurses reported being demeaned at an alarmingly high rate. “A 1997 study of 130 U.S. nurses…found that 90% reported being victims of verbal abuse by physicians during the past year” (p. 21). A 2003 study of 461 nurses revealed

Sep 4, 2010

Coaching and Mental Illness

“Coaching is normally seen as an activity to enhance performance and achievement of goals” (Buckley, 2010, p. 394). When coaches talk about clients in terms of mental health needs, these clients are better served by related fields like counseling or clinical psychology, not coaching or its cousin, coaching psychology. There are many psychologists and other mental health professionals who have found coaching to be an appealing alternative to therapeutic practice. However, Anth

Aug 13, 2010

Book Review: Good Boss, Bad Boss

In an email exchange, Professor Robert I. Sutton (author of the highly acclaimed book, “The No Asshole Rule”) asked me if I was interested in seeing a “galley” of his upcoming book, “Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best… and Learn from the Worst” (due out September 2010). According to Dr. Sutton, “galleys” are “essentially cheap paperback versions of the book that usually have a few typos and may need a little more editing” sent as advanced copies “to the press and other o

Feb 5, 2010

Implementing Change and Overcoming Resistance

[NOTE: This post was updated November 2016] In “Leading Change,” John Kotter (1996) outlined an 8-Stage Process to Creating Major Change: Establish a Sense of Urgency: Examine market and competitive realities; identify and discuss crises, potential crises, or major opportunities Create the Guiding Coalition: Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change; get group to work together as a team Develop a Vision & Strategy: Create a vision to help direct the change effort;

Dec 18, 2009

Being Attractive Helps Get You Hired

[NOTE: This post was updated October 2017] When making decisions about whether or not to hire prospective job applicants, interviewers are influenced by an applicant’s attractiveness (Shahani-Denning, 2003, citing Watkins & Johnston, 2000; Jawahar & Mattsson, 2005). There is a great deal of evidence that being good-looking positively impacts the hiring decisions of employers (Shahani-Denning, 2003, citing Watkins & Johnston). This is known as the “what is beautiful is good” s

Dec 13, 2009

People with a Situational Value System

[NOTE: This post was updated March 2022 for freshness & accuracy.] Many years ago, while waiting for a show at a nice hotel in Dallas, my wife and I were standing in line to order some coffee. As we were in line waiting (we were second in line) at a busy one-person coffee stand, the woman waiting behind us (she was third in line) yelled out, “Can I go ahead and pay for this?” It didn’t matter to her that two other people (the first lady in line and us) were ahead of her in th