Most Popular Editorials: The Quest for a Killer KPI

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The Quest for a Killer KPI Streamlined metrics can get people moving in the same direction and improve business performance. Continued here

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The Meaning of Half a Degree: A New Way to Think about Climate Change Julia Baum, a marine biologist at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, has been researching climate-threatened coral reefs for years. But recently she decided to make a change. “I’ve realized the best way I can help to save coral reefs is not to work on coral reefs,” she says. “It’s to work on the energy transition.” That’s because climate change is caused chiefly by the burning of fossil fuels, which now accounts for 86 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. And unless we rapidly transition to clean energy, all other efforts to save corals—or our warming planet—won’t matter. Continued here

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The Rise of the “Corporate Nomad” The rise of the corporate nomad will be inexorable in the wake of the pandemic. These are individuals who, while maintaining a full-time employment relationship with their organizations, will increasingly participate part-time in geographically dispersed initiatives and projects within their employer’s global network. The benefits are many.  It gives individuals a sense of financial stability while also allowing them be exposed to new people, new geographies, new cultures, new values, and new work projects without having to leave their current organization. Fostering this type of global exposure and contribution will also become an increasingly important and effective way for organizations to retain and develop top talent. It can provide individuals and corporations alike with an extraordinary chance to reap the benefits of job enrichment and change, without requiring individuals to jump into the wrong place with the wrong fit, and without creating a situation where organizations must replace great employees who should never have been lost in the first place. Continued here

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A Gentler, Better Way to Change Minds Stop wielding your values as a weapon and start offering them as a gift.What is the point of arguing with someone who disagrees with you? Presumably, you would like them to change their mind. But that's easier said than done: Research shows that changing minds, especially changing beliefs that are tied strongly to people's identity, is extremely difficult. As one scholar put it, this personal attachment to beliefs encourages "competitive personal contests rather than collaborative searches for the truth." Continued here

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Shane Warne: Do liquid diets work and are they safe? Shane Warne, who died from natural causes, had reportedly been on a liquid diet for 14 days - to try to lose weight quickly.Days before he died, he tweeted an old photo, saying: "The goal by July is to get back to this shape from a few years ago."Friends have said it was a regime he had tried several times before, although there is no evidence it was linked to his sudden death.So how safe are these diets and what is their effect on the body? Continued here

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“A Friend of a Friend” Is No Longer the Best Way to Find a Job How do you get a job these days? The answer often involves networking — it isn’t what you know, it’s who, we’re told. But the type of networking that’s valuable has changed over time. In the 1970s, for example, weak ties were important (your child’s teacher, or the friend of a friend who you happen to meet at a party). That’s because they might be privy to open jobs outside your network. With the introduction of the internet, however, there is no shortage of job listings, leading to a glut of applications. Because of this, former coworkers and bosses who can speak to your talents in the office can help cut through the noise. This isn’t without problems, namely today’s relatively homogenous workplaces. So practically, if you’re recommending someone for a job, remember that you have to be thoughtful and ethical about it. And if you’re looking, remember to be good to the coworkers you have now. Continued here

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ADHD looks different in adults. Here are 4 signs to watch for By adulthood, ADHD symptoms may be more internalised but they can also cause grown up problems. Continued here

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The best- and worst-paying college majors, five years after graduation The top 10 majors earning the most five years from graduation are all related to engineering — except for computer science, which ranks fifth out of all majors. Of that top 10, the average yearly salary is just over $68,000, with computer engineering paying $74,000 in median wages — the most of all majors. Continued here

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How self-driving cars got stuck in the slow lane “I would be shocked if we do not achieve full self-driving safer than a human this year,” said Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, in January. For anyone who follows Musk’s commentary, this might sound familiar. In 2020, he promised autonomous cars the same year, saying: “There are no fundamental challenges.” In 2019, he promised Teslas would be able to drive themselves by 2020 – converting into a fleet of 1m “robotaxis”. He has made similar predictions every year going back to 2014. Continued here

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Dostoyevsky, Just After His Death Sentence Was Repealed, on the Meaning of Life "To be a human being among people and to remain one forever, no matter in what circumstances, not to grow despondent and not to lose heart - that’s what life is all about, that’s its task." Continued here

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3 reasons not to bring your authentic self to work There has been a lot of talk lately about bringing your authentic self to the workplace. This trend is rooted in good intentions. It requires energy when, for whatever reason, we have to be mindful about regulating some facet of our identity. Accordingly, easing this burden makes sense. And although the idea of allowing everyone to express themselves freely is grounded in good intention, often in the workplace, this practice can lead to unintended consequences. To be clear, this is exclusive of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts that are long overdue. DEI initiatives, when done well, create and help maintain work environments that are safe and inclusive for all. Here we’re talking about something a bit different. Continued here

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The 3 Elements of Trust As a leader, you want the people in your organization to trust you. And with good reason. In our coaching with leaders, we often see that trust is a leading indicator of whether others evaluate them positively or negatively. But how to create that trust, or perhaps more importantly, how reestablish it when you’ve lost it isn’t always that straightforward. By analyzing over 80,000 360-degree reviews, the authors found that there are three elements that predict whether a leader will be trusted by his direct reports, peers, and other colleagues. These are positive relationships, consistency, and good judgment/expertise. When a leader was above average on each of these elements, they were more likely to be trusted, and positive relationships appeared to be the most important element in that, without it, a leader’s trust rating fell most significantly. Trust is an important currency in organizations and any leader would be wise to invest time in building it by focusing on these three elements. Continued here

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Why Do We Undervalue Competent Management? Business schools teach MBA students that you can’t compete on the basis of management processes because they’re easily copied. Operational effectiveness is table stakes in the competitive universe, according to the strategists. But data from a decade-long research project involving 12,000 firms challenges that thinking. Continued here

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5 Ways Managers Sabotage the Hiring Process Nearly every hiring manager has a blind spot that, if left unidentified, can lead to devastating outcomes even within well-planned systems. Over time, the author has identified five common blind spots that corrode recruitment outcomes — and how to correct them. First, they assume they can fix issues they identify in a candidate during the recruitment process. Second, they signal a culture of micromanagement. Third, in attempting to telegraph empathy, they actually signal a lack of professional boundaries. Fourth, they overlook contrarian candidates. Finally, by trying to convey a culture of autonomy, they inadvertently suggest that they’re totally emotionally hands-off. Continued here

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The 12 Best Ways to Lose Weight After 50 You hear all these stories about how it's harder to lose weight after age 50 than it was earlier in life. While there are some biological factors that can make it harder to take off extra weight in your 50s and beyond, some of what's keeping the weight on is that your lifestyle has changed. Continued here

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5 habits of people who are especially productive working from home Before many office workers transitioned to remote arrangements, the thought of working from home sounded like a dream. Who doesn’t love the idea of ditching the commute and staying in your sweats? But those of us who have been working from home for years know the reality, and it isn’t always as stress-free as it sounds. Continued here

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Electric Planes Are Coming Sooner Than You Think You may be boarding an electric plane sooner than you think. The first rollouts for a major airline—with United—are due in 2026, and countries like Denmark and Sweden have announced plans to make all domestic flights fossil fuel–free by 2030. Continued here

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The surprising links between what you eat and how well you sleep Not getting enough sleep can lead to a vicious circle of over-eating and further sleep deprivation, but it may be possible to create a virtuous circle - where healthy eating actually improves your sleep. Continued here

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How Your Leadership Style Can Inform Your Parenting Being a working parent of a teenager doesn’t mean you no longer need to worry about balancing career and family; it just means you face new and different challenges. Raising teens is like leading other leaders in some ways — working with people who developmentally crave more autonomy and are seeking more empowerment and freedom. You can use your leader of leaders skills to communicate more effectively with your teen and help them develop the skills, judgment, and resilience they need to be fully independent. Continued here

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3 Steps to Creating a Profitable Business Idea According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of startups are closed in the first year, and half of them within the first five years. CBInsights reports 35% of startups fail because of a lack of market demand, among others failure reasons — cash flow problems, getting outcompeted, a flawed business model and legal challenges.  Continued here

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How One McDonald’s Employee Busted a $24 Million Crime Ring to Save the Company McDonald's communications manager Amy Murray was sweating, and not just because of the weather. It was a muggy August morning in 2001, and she stood on the porch of Michael Hoover's nondescript townhome in Westerly, Rhode Island. The casino pit boss waiting inside was the latest winner of a promotional game that enticed customers to collect Monopoly "pieces" from the sides of the fast food chain's signature red boxes and in magazine inserts. Winners were promised "big time prizes!" like tropical vacations and free fries. Continued here

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The Future Is Uncertain. Here’s How to Ensure Your Team Can Adapt. As teams have scrambled to adapt to new conditions in the wake of the pandemic, many have devised exciting and highly productive new ways of relating to each other and getting their work done. The best teams transformed their ways of working through what we call “radical adaptability.” These are teams that went beyond mere coping with the crisis as an adaptive response. They used the crisis to reappraise and reinvent their work processes so that they could continue to adapt to unpredictable change in the years to come. This article discusses four essential ways to build radically adaptable teams in our new world of work: collaboration, agility, resilience, and foresight. The radically adaptive response entails fundamental changes to how the organization manages its workforce, develops new business models, and executes on its organizational purpose. Continued here

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Overcoming Self-Doubt in the Face of a Big Promotion When faced with a new career opportunity that requires new skills, we often question our competence. Job transitions come with untrodden ground. Our fear of failure makes us hesitate to embrace the opportunity. Continued here

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How to spend your first 90 days at a new job Detailed template and checklist for your first 30, 60, 90 days. Go from unknown outsider to trusted insider with confidence Continued here

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Scientists Watch a Memory Form in a Living Brain | Quanta Magazine While watching a fearful memory take shape in the brain of a living fish, neuroscientists see an unexpected level of rewiring occur in the synaptic connections. Continued here

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Ego Is the Enemy of Good Leadership The inflated ego that comes with success – the bigger salary, the nicer office, the easy laughs – often makes us feel as if we’ve found the eternal answer to being a leader. But the reality is, we haven’t. An inflated ego makes us susceptible to manipulation; it narrows our field of vision; and it corrupts our behavior, often causing us to act against our values. Breaking free of an overly-protective or inflated ego and avoiding the leadership bubble is an important and challenging job that requires selflessness, reflection, and courage. Continued here

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Radical Plan to Make Earth's Deepest Hole Could Unleash Limitless Energy Since its launch in 2020, a pioneering energy company called Quaise has attracted some serious attention for its audacious goal of diving further into Earth's crust than anybody has dug before. Continued here

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A Simple Way to Map Out Your Career Ambitions It’s easy to be confused about how to grow in your career. Even the most successful global companies are vague about the most effective development options. So it’s up to you to take charge of your own growth. Start by writing your “from/to” statements. These are two brief statements — one describing where you are today and one describing your next big (not your ultimate) destination. Then create a personal experience map. A personal experience map shows which experiences you want to acquire in the next two to five years. Growing yourself faster isn’t easy but it’s made far simpler when you’re clear about your origin, your destination, and the fastest, experience-driven route between the two. Continued here

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The realities of the four-day workweek When Koray Camgöz was granted a four-day workweek, the benefits seemed numerous. The new schedule forced the London-based PR officer to organise his time better. He was still able to meet deadlines and stay on top of to-do lists, while enjoying an extra day off each week. Most importantly, for the recent father, he was able to spend more time with his child.  Continued here

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‘I Don’t Know How to Say ‘No’ at Work’ I’ve become the go-to person everyone at work relies on for more and more job functions until I’m unable to keep up. I’m the type who goes to my own birthday party and ends up fixing one friend’s phone and cleaning part of a different friend’s house before I go home. I like to be busy and helpful, but there are limits. Continued here

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It’s Tough to Build a Corporate Culture in a Remote-Work World Rita Ramakrishnan started as head of people and talent at the real estate startup Cadre in April 2020. She had moved from San Francisco to New York for the job, where she planned to oversee the growing startup's workplace culture. Ramakrishnan had all kinds of plans, but she never made it to the office; instead, she spent her first months converting her new apartment into a home workspace. The experience reminded her of an old saying: Man plans, and God laughs. Continued here

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Why Customer Relationship Management Systems Will Become Obsolete Within 10 Years Most executives will tell you that customer relationship management (CRM) systems are essential technology. Many will tell you they are the key mechanism for gaining a deeper understanding of customers, building strong relationships with them, and making data-driven decisions that maximize customer satisfaction and lifetime value. Continued here

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What happened to Starbucks? How a progressive company lost its way

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Sleeping with even a small amount of light may harm your health, study says (CNN)Sleeping for only one night with a dim light, such as a TV set with the sound off, raised the blood sugar and heart rate of healthy young people participating in a sleep lab experiment, a new study found. Continued here

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The world's forests do more than just store carbon, new research finds The world's forests play a far greater and more complex role in tackling climate crisis than previously thought, due to their physical effects on global and local temperatures, according to new research. Continued here

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How Long Should It Take to Grieve? Psychiatry Has Come Up With an Answer. The decision marks an end to a long debate within the field of mental health, steering researchers and clinicians to view intense grief as a target for medical treatment, at a moment when many Americans are overwhelmed by loss. Continued here

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What We Keep Getting Wrong About Burnout My peers started talking about burnout when Anne Helen Petersen first wrote about what she called the “impossible” task. She described a situation where a small, non-urgent task that would normally feel easy feels insurmountable (in her case, getting a pair of boots resoled). Burnout, she argued, was the overall condition of millennials as a generation. She made this argument back in 2019, before the pandemic. Continued here

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The Costs of Oversharing With Your Boss I used to work at a large corporate office with a rigid top-down structure. My boss made it clear she wasn’t interested in how we spent our free time. There was no “How was your weekend?” or “Where did you go for the holidays?” We were there to work for her, period. Continued here

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How to Stop Overthinking and Start Trusting Your Gut Intuition is frequently dismissed as mystical or unreliable — but there’s a deep neurological basis for it. When you approach a decision intuitively, your brain works in tandem with your gut to quickly assess all your memories, past learnings, personal needs, and preferences and then makes the wisest decision given the context. The author offers strategies to learn how to leverage your intuition as a helpful decision-making tool in your career: 1) discern gut feeling from fear, 2) start by making minor decisions, 3) test drive your choices, 4) try the snap judgment test, and 5) fall back on your values. Continued here

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How to Make the Right Connections When You Don’t Already Have an “In” If you’re new to your field or you’ve changed locations, you may not know the right people to connect you to business opportunities. To grow your network, try these five strategies. 1) Embrace specificity: tell your existing contacts exactly who you want to meet, whether that’s employees at a certain company (“I’d love to consult for Google”) or in a particular role (“Do you know anyone who is a VP of human resources?”). 2) Be willing to accept “six degrees of separation.” Of course, it’s much easier when your friends know the right people and can introduce you directly. But if you’re willing to take the extra time and effort to cultivate multiple chains of connections, you can often end up in the right place. 3) Speak for free in unlikely places.  4) Create content to attract the right people to you. Continued here