With Labor Day weekend and summer behind us, most of us have packed the kids off to school and have got back to the daily grind. We spent some of our time reading about new ways to increase employee engagement, Google’s management practices, diversity in the workplace, and the power of the jam. Here are some of our favorite print and online articles you may have missed on vacation:
Increase employee engagement by encouraging employees to bring their interests to work. With employee engagement low at many companies, this blog from Harvard Business Review notes that allowing team members to express their other interests in the workplace can create a more cohesive environment by allowing natural “tribes” to form that are based on more than just workplace function.
Curiosity may be just as important as IQ and EQ when developing executive presence. As the world becomes more complex and information becomes even more easily available, researchers are beginning to look into “curiosity” as a factor in determining workplace success. Whereas IQ measures “intelligence” and EQ measures “emotional intelligence,” a relatively new metric—the Curiosity Quotient (CQ)—measures an individual’s capacity to engage with the world’s mounting complexity and how that affects problem solving and other behaviors. A must-read for the breakdown of the three metrics.
How Google has changed management 10 years after its IPO. In the 10 years since Google went public, countless articles have been written about its unique management structure, focus on innovation, and data-driven strategies to increase employee engagement. Even as the company prepares to scuttle some of these approaches, this article takes a look at some of the innovations that Google has brought to management.
How the confidence and gender gap looks from the perspective of transgender people. This fascinating article takes a look at the confidence gap and workplace gender diversity from a unique perspective—that of transgender people. Having experienced the workplace from both male and female perspectives, their observations and experiences reveal deeply seated biases and challenges. Well worth a read.
Need a power boost? Pump up the bass. This academic article in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests that ‘”power inducing music” leads to short-term increases in abstract thinking, illusory control, and moving first. The key to power inducing music, according to the research, is to pump up the bass.