The Gallup Management Journal reports that only 29 per cent of employees are truly 'engaged' in their work. This refers to employees being passionate about their work and feeling a connection to the company.
Unfortunately, the majority (54 per cent) of the workforce fits into the 'not engaged' category, meaning they put the time but not the energy or passion into their work. To use the words of Gallup: They are sleepwalking through their workday.
Solutions to problems, new products and services, enhanced processes all share one thing in common - someone had an idea. Funnily enough though many people tell me that they are not capable of creative thinking. There is some credence to the notion that some people are more creative than others, but we all have the ability to think creatively if we believe we can.
I recently got to read the 5th edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK), in particular, the addition of the ‘Stakeholder Management’ section – I’m afraid I was disappointed!
Though PMBoK is very well structured, thorough and rigorous, it is essentially a very left-brained (logical) document best suited for technically driven projects. What has always been lacking, in my opinion, is the genuine attention to emotional quotient (EQ)!
This week I read some interesting research from the British Psychological Society's Research Digest about how expectations can affect students’ exam performance. The findings have implications for anyone who manages others in the workplace.
The researchers built on previous studies that show students who see intelligence and ability as fixed will tend to give up when confronted with a difficult problem, while those who think you can grow intelligence will persevere.
