A simple search on the net or a step into a bookshop and you find yourself buried under articles, tips, quotes and books about motivation. In order to avoid getting into the row of the “what to do right” suggestions, I decided to twist the tale a bit and give you some tips on how…
Empowered employee: a manager’s dream or nightmare?
In theory every manager would like to be surrounded by initiative, problem solver, responsible and competent employees who have their own authority and great decision makers as well. In theory – because in practice they fear that such an employee is like a threat for their leader: they think that such subordinate will apply for their…
Intuitive thinking
Do you find that you are required to make complex decisions facing with uncertainty in a hurry? Have you ever felt that you are supposed to take into consideration too many facts, data and numbers to make a decision in today’s fast paced environment? Are you confident in using your gut feelings in these kind…
It’s difficult to be a leader alone
Being a leader is a very complex role. Especially in our time, when leaders would be required to know enough to support the team they are leading – says Prof. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the video below: They should know the needs of different minorities, like women, children, people with special needs etc. They should be able to…
Body & Mind – Flow & Leadership – Your Success!
On Prof. Buzady’s “New trends in Leadership” course we always had the body-mind-success theme trilogy to highlight and to exercise the connection between wellness and leadership. This theme is now also the focus of a HBR article: We have forgotten that organizations are first and foremost places of human interaction, not justtransaction. Research shows that our greatest need…
Parts of Prof. Csikszentmihalyi’s commencement address
This blogpost contains parts of Prof. Csikszentmihalyi’s commencement speech addressed at the Colorado College in 2002. Even though this commencement address is 14 years old now, still contains ultimate truths that could serve as guiding principles of life: “Now that you are poised for this great transition, about to leave the safe for the unknown, it…
The Theory of “Flow” And Its Relevance for Organizations – 5th (final) part from the working paper
Part 4 – Demographic Changes 3. Implications for employee training and learning Traditional, formal learning systems, in which “students” sit for hours and listen to (often not well crafted and delivered) lectures and take exams are becoming less and less effective because in an ever-growing number of societies young people have mastered learning – primarily…
The Theory of “Flow” And Its Relevance for Organizations – 4th part from the working paper
Part 3 – The changing context of managing 2. Demographic changes Of the demographic changes that are impacting management/leadership practices we will briefly discuss two phenomena: implications of the allegedly large “social gaps” between generations and the ageing of the population. Generation gaps: Social generations are cohorts of people born in the same date range and…
The Theory of “Flow” And Its Relevance for Organizations – 3rd part from the working paper
Part 2 – Leaders versus managers The changing technological and cultural context of managing / leading This section offers a few thoughts on the impact of technology and demographic changes for managing and leading employees and other stakeholders. A subsection discusses the implications of technological and demographic changes for employee training and learning. 1.…
The Theory of “Flow” And Its Relevance for Organizations – 2nd part from the working paper
Part 1 – “Are you satisfied with your workplace?” Leaders versus managers Before delving into our main topics, let us detour briefly by addressing a controversy in the organizational literature: the presumed similarities and differences between “managers” and “leaders”. The subtitle of our book (which we are partly summarizing and partly extending here) is “Integrating…