When your employees have to do something straightforward, like pressing a button or manning one stage in an assembly line, financial incentives work. Its a small effect, but they do work. Simple jobs are like the simple candle problem. However, if your people must do something that requires any creative or critical thinking, financial incentives hurt. The In-Box Candle Problem is the stereotypical problem that requires you to think “Out of the Box,” you knew that was coming, didnt you?. Whenever people must think out of the box, offering them a monetary carrot will keep them in that box.

Who would have thought ?

Well – we would actually. It fits right in with our findings.

via A Mad Hemorrhage Blog | Nature Publishing Group.

ALL-CAPPED email. Using all uppercase letters is considered CYBER SHOUTING (and you could be fired for it). As an alternative, use asterisks to emphasize key words. “Bob and I had a *wonderful* time at the company reception last night.”

Read The Full Post ‘Emails That Could Get You FIRED’ here

Dont Send That Email. Pick up the Phone! – Anthony Tjan – Harvard Business Review.

Some simple rules applied :

1. It is hard to get the EQ (emotional intelligence) right in email. The biggest drawback and danger with email is that the tone and context are easy to misread. In a live conversation, how one says something, with modulations and intonations, is as important as what they are saying. With email it is hard to get the feelings behind the words.

2. Email and text often promote reactive responses, as opposed to progress and action to move forward. Going back to the zero latency expectation in digital communications, it is hard for people to pause and think about what they should say. One of my colleagues suggests not reacting to any incendiary message until you have at least had a night to sleep on it, and always trying to take the higher ground over email. While by definition reactive responses occur in live discourse, they are usually more productive. The irony is that while email, as an asynchronous channel, has the potential to be more thoughtful, it often promotes the opposite tendency to be immediately reactive. Why? Because the bark is almost always bigger than the bite behind remote digital shields.

3. Email prolongs debate. Because of the two reasons above, I have seen too many debates continue well beyond the point of usefulness. Worse, I have experienced situations which start relatively benignly over email, only to escalate because intentions and interests are easily misunderstood online. When I ask people if they have called or asked to meet the counterpart to try and reach a resolution, there is usually a pause, then a sad answer of “no.”

Enough said.

Get the full story from the media centre at the Energy Institute

BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.

No wonder the lobby was such a frightful mess!

• As experienced portfolio professionals all expert alumni are quite used to thinking about the complex issues of operating in a global work marketplace: languages, cultures, codes, expectations and so on. Managing these conditions requires good translation skills, in the broadest sense (not just linguistic).
• The flexibility of portfolio life means constant repositioning, re-evaluating and reflection to get the most out of every opportunity and experience.
• And, as the ideal we all aim for is for our work to become better and better and worth more and more, we must all practice the art of translating our experience into high value currency to attain further opportunity too.

All of this points to the important role of translation for all portfolio workers: creatively and effectively transforming, re-defining and communicating so that our lifestyle comes to mean what we want it to: self-defined, sustainable and fulfilling.

As a smiling reminder of the role of translation in portfolio life we will be running a regular sidebar feature in the newsletter. … And please do send us any examples you may find on your travels and we’ll try and use them …

DR. B. BOOMER — an unfortunate, but fictional, dentist — worked and saved for years, only to see her portfolio shrivel after a series of investments in orthodontia-related dot-coms a decade ago. She then put her money into seemingly safe financial firms, like A.I.G., and was hammered during the subsequent downturn. Her plan to retire by selling her Scottsdale McMansion isn’t going well either. So the poor woman is spending her 65th year, not in glorious retirement, but fixing fillings for screaming children and generally annoyed adults.

Sadly – though this is a fictional story, it is close to reality for a lot of boomers. To read the full article at the New York Times – click through now to Retirement? Goodbye, Golden Years – from the NYT – and know that it is this kind of story that drives us every day to help improve the lot of individual and organizations alike.

Very specifically the  Individual Achievement Award, sponsored by Expert Alumni was won by David Williams of Eco2

For the full story (Released on 18/11/2011) - read here :

http://www.energyinst.org/media-relations/media-centre/164

(about that resume) …. before you add another bullet point, consider this: It’s not always about what you add in—the best changes you can make may lie in what you take out.The average resume is chock-full of sorely outdated, essentially meaningless phrases that take up valuable space on the page. Eliminate them, and you’ll come off as a better, more substantial candidate—and your resume won’t smack of that same generic, mind-numbing quality found on everyone else’s.Every word—yes, every word—on that page should be working hard to highlight your talents and skills. If it’s not, it shouldn’t be on there. So grab a red pen, and banish these words from your resume for good.

The Full Article : Final Cut: Words to Strike from Your Resume – Forbes.

it’s important to remember that new technologies and tools raise productivity not only because companies adopt them but also, more critically, because they enable new management practices and organizational structures.

McKinsey Article from November 2011