TGIF – Get With The Program

As the week winds down, we wind down with some tidbits for your information, education, health, and enjoyment.

Quote of the Week: “Occasionally, I make waffles for breakfast for any employee who wants to talk to me. I make them around 8 A.M. as an incentive for people to show up early.” David Ulevitch

Humor Break:

Bev: What do you think of employee engagement?

Al: I don’t want to be married to my work.

Stat of the Week: Colleague Ken Nowack has frequently written about employee disengagement in his Monday columns. But what to do about it? Recently Harvard Business Review blogger Susan David suggested 4 tips for improving employee engagement. She writes “engagement is an emotional and deeply personal experience; it’s not simple or straightforward to address. But leaders must do so, for the sake of not only their employees but also their companies.” Pinpoint point. Check out her tips.

Action Tip: If you are a supervisor or manager and you are not actively attempting to get a handle on and improve the engagement levels of your employees, ask yourself this important question: “How engaged am I?”.

Self-Development Corner: This week Coursera only offers four new classes, but the variety of offerings means there is likely something for you or someone you know. Hey, I am going to take two of them. Join with me in exploring the latest research in Social Psychology (August 12, 6 weeks, Wesleyan University) or the very intriguing introductory course A Brief History of Humankind (August 11, 17 weeks, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

Or maybe you might like to be better educated in Climate Change (August 12, 9 weeks, University of Melbourne) or for our Spanish reading readers Matemáticas y movimiento (August 12, 14 weeks, Tecnológico de Monterrey).

Social Psychology doesn’t officially begin until next week. But it is up and running and I have just finished the first week. It an outstanding and amazing survey course that I recommend with unbounded enthusiasm. It is filled with fun exercises like guessing a number or a letter on the back of a playing card; watching videos and not seeing things that are perfectly obvious, the professor’s motivational way of talking to us, and great readings with great stories. Below is a story to illustrate the importance of “framing” – “The way a question or an issue is posed; framing can influence people’s decisions and expressed opinions.”

There is a story told of a sultan who dreamed he had lost all of his teeth. “Summoned to interpret the dream, the first interpreter said, ‘Alas! The lost teeth mean you will see your family members die.’ Enraged, the sultan ordered 50 lashes for this bearer of bad news. When a second dream interpreter heard the dream, he explained the sultan’s good fortune: ‘You will outlive your whole clan!” Reassured, the sultan ordered his treasurer to go and fetch 50 pieces of gold for this bearer of good news. On the way, the bewildered treasurer observed to the second interpreter, ‘Your interpretation was no different from that of the first interpreter.’ “Ah yes,’ the wise interpreter replied, ‘but remember: What matters is not only what you say, but how you say it.’”

Boy, ain’t that the truth!

Happy learning.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.