Dont Be These 4 People at Work

Dont Be These 4 People at WorkDont Be These 4 People at Work Everyone has worked with someone who rubs people the wrong way . People like this may bedrngnis know that their behaviors annoy everyone else, and in some cases, they actually think their actions are positive.Its hard to let people like that know that their behavior has hurt their standing in the workplace . What you can do, however, is make koranvers youre not one of these typical workplace drags. To do that, you need to make an honest self-assessment to binnensee if you engage in the actions associated with any of the categories of people were going to talk about.In many cases, this isnt an all-in situation. Its not about whether you exhibit some of these characteristics on an occasional basis. Instead, you need to examine if youre a chronic practitioner of any of these behaviors. If you are, then it may be time to consider making some changes.Sometimes things go wrong at work and its perfectly justified t o complain to your co-workers. Thats reasonable, if rare, but when complaining becomes the norm, you bring the entire mood of the office down.If things are that bad, then it may be time to move on . Feeding negativity doesnt bring about change and can poison an otherwise positive environment.That doesnt mean you shouldnt try to correct workplace wrongs. If there are legitimate concerns, bring them up through the proper channels. If that doesnt work, then complaining to co-workers certainly wont accomplish anything.Its natural for people who work together to speculate on the private lives of their co-workers. Keep those thoughts to yourself. Who may or may not be dating in the office is not an acceptable workplace discussion topic.You should even be careful when it comes to work-related gossip. You may know that someone is getting a promotion or someone else is getting fired, but its important to make sure news like that gets delivered through the right channels, rather than you , so it doesnt make its way to the people involved before theyre properly notified.Many years ago, in my first summer as a paid employee of the camp where I had previously attended as a camper, our group was often tasked with physical labor. That might mean doing heavy lifting or engaging in unpleasant tasks like dealing with clogged plumbing.One of my co-workers had an amazing ability to be otherwise engaged when this schriftart of labor came up. When that happens a few times, it may be an accident. When it starts happening every time, the rest of the staff gets resentful.In this case, my co-workers made it clear that this person was ducking his responsibilities. They made it a mission to track him down when the absolute worst assignments came up and make sure he got them.People will resent you if you always find your way out of the hardest work. Make sure you do more than your fair share, so that when you really do have to say no to something extra or unpleasant, it wont cause a problem.There are lots of names for the person who kisses up to the boss a little too much, and none of them are good. Again, this can be a fine line. You certainly want to support and respect the person in charge, but theres a difference between that and being a fawning lackey.Obviously, how you treat your boss depends a lot on him or her. Some bosses carry themselves as above the workers, while others take a more one of the team type approach. No matter what the person you work for is like, treat them as they ask to be treated, but not as if they can do no wrong or that the sun rises because of them.You can avoid being any of the people on this list by focusing on being the best co-worker possible. That requires that you sometimes examine your own behavior and consider how it affects others. If you do that regularly, youre likely to be a more-valued member of the workforce.

Growth, comfort cant coexist in business  The best way forward

Growth, comfort cant coexist in business The best way forwardGrowth, comfort cant coexist in business The best way forwardErik prferenz is a visual artist, author, and highly sought-after keynotlagee speaker who inspires audiences to unleash their creativity and achieve superior performance. Author and award-winning podcaster David Burkus recently hosted him on Radio Free Leader to discuss how the creative principles of wandmalerei art can help anyone make an innovative impact at work.David When most people think of a graffiti artist, they either think of punk kids spray painting on streetcars, or they think of Banksy. But you take the lessons from both Banksy and the punks, and apply them to anybody thats trying to make an impact in the world.Erik When I first departureed exploring art at the age of 30, the art that I was most drawn to were the street artists - the Banksys, the MadCs, the Kobras - this really thought-provoking, almost anarchistic art. I saw it as a form of communi cation.So even though I did do sculpture, writing, and photography, I became a self-proclaimed graffiti artist because that was what interested me the most. And it was the most sticky - the fact that I was a graffiti artist who was on the corporate lecture circuit talking to Fortune 500 companies about innovation and creativity.But one of the things that Ive learned is that art is not about creating a product, but creating thinking. Whether that thinking is complex problem-solving, figuring out supply chain distribution opportunities, anticipating emerging trends and future markets, or painting a self-portrait, that process of thinking is all the same.David Thats so amazing, because in a corporate setting, when we talk about the flipside of creativity or of art, we use the word innovation. Which is funny to me, because a lot of times what blocks innovation is that lack of thinking, right? So art is about creating something that provokes thought and attempts innovation, whether it b e a product, a service, or just a procedure or process.Erik It very much is. And so much of ur perception of creativity is largely based around myths You were born either with or without creativity. What I have experienced is that creativity is basically deprogrammed out of us through our academic institutions and through our organizational learning. When we deify those as absolutes, we lose so much of our creative potential. We get this tunnel vision, focused on one specific point in time which, given the amazingly rapid changes that are taking place around us, is no longer relevant.Discipline is what enables creativity, and creativity without discipline is like a river without banks.You cant approach this as a tactic, or a strategy, or a best practice. Youve got to be agile. Youve got to have mental dexterity. You have to be able to navigate ambiguity. And thats where the arts are one of those training grounds for being able to look at a blank canvas and not be intimidated, to be able to step forward and start creating, even if you dont yet know what the end product is going to look like.David You are totally speaking my language.You said something really interesting - you didnt pursue being an artist until your thirties.Erik You know, I was a model student. I was trained to get good grades so that I could get a good job, so that I could make lots of money, and then build security, and then retire, and then be happy. That was my entire operating system, and it worked very well.Around the age of 30, I had what my wife and I call an early midlife crisis. The dot-com bomb blindsided me, as it did so many other people, and I was completely ill-equipped to deal with such a significant setback. And it wasnt, You know what? Im going to be an artist. That only came about through tremendous suffering, and hardship, and a loss of identity and ego, because I senfgas all of my financial security. I lost my job. I lost everything I had identified with.Mercifully, it was through spending time with some artists who cared about me that I became fascinated with their view of the world. They say that once youve lost everything, you are free to explore anything, and thats really where this started. I found new life in this exploration of the arts.And I wasnt making any money at it. It didnt provide any financial security, but it provided a flicker of hope, a reason to get out bed in the morning. There were so many unhealthy choices I could have made to numb the pain that I was feeling, and I have great empathy for others who have experienced pain or hardship and have turned to unhealthy addictions, because I get it. Fortunately, I didnt, and I found new life through art.As I began to explore that, I couldnt get enough. I almost became intoxicated by this idea of studying the masters, studying the psychology behind art, studying the techniques on how to paint, how to binnensee, how to sculpt, how to write. I approached it from a sense of unbridled curios ity and fascination, which I think taught me faster than any formal art training would have. And thats where that new brand evolved from.I think J.K. Rowling said that, Rock bottom is a great place to start. Build a new foundation. Thats truly what happened to me, this process of a very analytical, practical, rational business thinker morphing into an imaginative, innovative, creative, explorative artist.David The life history that you just unpacked lines up with a lot of the research that I unpacked in The Myths of Creativity. We have this misunderstanding that these things are binary, that there is being the educated, disciplined, intellectual, academic person, or being the freewheeling, freethinking, creative, explorational person. What I heard was you taking that same disciplined process as a student and applying it to the arts, and learning a lot more a lot quicker because of that process. Theres a creative element, but theres also a lot of discipline involved for any artist wh o manages to provoke thought on a wide scale.Erik My career would not have been possible if I had not had that structured, analytical approach in the beginning. And we need that. We need structure. We need discipline. I needed that academic background be able to circle around creativity, to see it from different angles.The largest take-home from my book is that structure creates freedom. Discipline is what enables creativity, and creativity without discipline is like a river without banks. It will just run without a focal point, without an end goal in mind. And weve got to not only create that passion, that curiosity for unlocking the future, but we also need to build actionable substance, and steps, and discipline by which to get there. We also need to have the agility by which to navigate bumps in the road, and to face resistance, and to work through it. And that takes tremendous discipline. It is far easier to teach an analytical, business professional how to be intuitive or crea tive than it is for me to teach an emotional, intuitive artist how to be structured or disciplined. And so thats really where the concept for The Spark and the Grind came from. Its not either, or - its yes, and. They work as a yin and yang function together.You get promoted for having all the answers, even if you have the wrong questions.David We see the same thing when we start working with businesses. Theres this idea that, Oh, if we can just get freewheeling and creative, if we just look like Google or Pixar, thatll solve the whole thing. And what a lot of people dont realize is that those firms are so innovative not just because of the quirkiness, but also because of the discipline with which they bring that quirkiness into a tangible, scalable idea.Erik One of the most common questions I get is, Hey, what are some examples of companies youve worked with and the creative ideas theyve implemented? And Im hesitant to give specific examples because thats what worked yesterday. Onc e I give an example of what Google does, of what Uber does, of what Airbnb has done, then we try to plug our ideology into that old formula. But consumer behavior changes daily. And so rather than give a man a fish, I want to teach him how to fish. I want to teach him how to think, how to adapt, how to be mentally agile. Its an expanding of consciousness, an expanding of emotional intelligence to be able to unlock problems that havent yet been invented.David One of the things you explore is this idea that we need to be seeking out things that make us uncomfortable, things that we dont any expertise in, things that we have permission to be a novice in. And thats so counter to most organizations cultures, because you dont get promoted for saying you dont know the answer, right? You get promoted for having all the answers, even if you have the wrong questions.Erik Right. We were promoted for getting 20 out of 20 on our spelling test, getting 100% on our math test, and our children migr ate towards that which theyre affirmed for. When theyre affirmed for doing well in these linear subjects, they will move in that direction. If theyre not rewarded for philosophical thinking, complex problem-solving, the arts, then theyre not going to go that direction.Weve got to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.In business, growth and comfort cannot coexist, so weve got to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Weve got to create cultures and environments that reward those mini-bursts of creativity and those opportunities where we might fail. And failure is not the opposite of success- its part of success. And its the culture inside that organization that chooses not to shame failure, but rather encourage it as an opportunity to self-correct.And you know, it really comes down to hiring individuals that arent linear, formulaic robots, but free thinkers who have the companys best ideas in mind. Its important to all be unified in a painted picture for the fu ture, but its not one leader tyrannically dictating how to get there. Its going to be a collection of diverse, creative thinkers that are all going to take different paths to get there.Our complete ideology is centered around risk mitigation, but we forget to look at the risk associated with being too structured. Theres so much disruption with social, mobile, and cloud technologies. Were coming into artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, virtual reality- things that our learned minds, our scholastic minds, are not prepared for. We need to be able to let go of that and latch onto something new, onto changing trends in consumer behavior. Mental dexterity, agility, and emotional intelligence are the new Holy Grail for individuals and organizations.David And our current education system isnt teaching that mental dexterity. Its affirming, You are as valuable as you can memorize concepts and spit them back to me. But we probably cant overhaul the education system in our lifetime. Yo u have three sons what do you do to affirm the skills that we just talked about?Mental dexterity, agility, and emotional intelligence are the new Holy Grail for individuals and organizations.Erik The onus is going to be on the parents, because our school system is not going to change. I used to be the biggest angry voice We need to change the educational system But when I did that, the people who were getting caught in the crosshairs were our most valuable resource the teachers. The teachers are the ones who are nurturing the kids. They became teachers because they wanted to grow young minds into the best possible version that they could be.So what did I do? Ignite fascination and curiosity in my boys outside of the classroom. School is going to be school. Theyre going to teach them reading, writing, and arithmetic. And frankly, that doesnt interest me all that much. As their dad, I dont want to teach them how to read. I dont want to teach them how to do math. In fact, a lot of the math that they did, I cant even do anymore. What I wanted to do was ignite their fascination beyond the four walls of the classroom. I wanted to bring culture and history alive to them - travel with them, teach them about the arts, teach them about empathy, teach them about love, teach them about suffering, and then work with them on their own artistic talents. My boys ended up being singers and songwriters. They play musical instruments. They also do a lot of painting, and exploring, and photography, and filmmaking. Every one of those skills is all about the philosophy of problem-solving. And it has allowed them to become very agile and adroit in handling the challenges that theyre experiencing in college right now.David A lot of the things that weve been talking about can be done on a managerial level with your team of people, treating them the same way you would treat a family, making sure youre not squelching their creativity.Final question in your view, what makes someone a le ader?Erik The ability to ignite other individuals, and to help them become the very best version of themselves. A leader breathes life into those around them, not through formulas, but through empathy and through understanding what lights them up. Because once theyre self-driven and ignited from the inside, all the leader has to do is step out of the way and help guide them going forward.This conversation has been edited and condensed. To listen to the full version, click here.This article first appeared on Heleo.

Study This is how much unproductive people undermine performance

Study This is how much unproductive people undermine performanceStudy This is how much unproductive people undermine performanceIt only takes one or two kollektiv members to undermine results for the entire group when they mess up, research from leadership training experts Vitalsmarts shows . Overwhelmed and less-productive team members affect performance by as much as 24%.In an online survey of 1,160 people, 90% said that when their teammates mess up, it costs the team in various ways loss of morale, trust, productivity, work quality, client or customer service, etc.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreTeams are fragile, Justin Hale, master trainer from Vitalsmarts said. I think that we absolutely found in our research that one or two people making some of these fumbles whether its not writing something down, not capturing it, or working on stuff that is busy work, but not the mos t important work that what starts to happen over time as the output of the team goes down, but also the trust in each other goes down.Hale shared some tips for getting the most out of team productivity adapted from Vitalsmarts training.To ignore this advice, he says, means more bad schmelzglas and more crappy meetings and more email, more crappy email.End with action. At the end of every meeting, finish up seven to 10 minutes early and say, What is the next action were going to take? And whos going to take it? And where are we going to follow up? Dont settle for vague answers make sureeveryone has a next action and a plan for follow-up.Create a capture culture.Write things down. That way you wont forget them, and youll follow through, which will make your colleagues trust you more. Create a note any way that works for you a Notes app, or whether youre emailing yourself, or write it down on paper and pencil. Capture everything, and trust goes up.Do the right stuff.So how do you as a team, help each other to do more of the right things? Define different types of work, and put boundaries around it. Dont spend all your time working on the surprises that pop up. Be respectful around email help each other by putting at the top of every email the desired action they want.Make it okay to say no. Create a culture where its okay to renegotiate tasks and projects, and where you can go to your boss if your plate is too full and ask to have your duties reallocated without that being a sign of defeat.Its all about developing good habits, Hale said. If people dont have the habits, youre going to get the fumbles, he warned. And its going to take a hit on your productivity by 20% or more.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people