The end of the year is drawing near again and it’s time once again to begin thinking about those dreaded year-end employee performance evaluations. These meetings, usually accompanied by some kind of documentation, are a kind of report card for employees—a chance for managers to assess the performance of their workforce, and a chance for employees to learn how they are doing in the eyes of their employer. The problem [...]
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Positive Leadership on Display
Last week, at the International Spa Association annual conference, the spa industry got a good immersion in what positive leadership looks like. The first day’s keynote speaker was Bert Jacobs, the CEO (Chief Executive Optimist) of Life is Good. In case you aren’t already familiar with the Life is Good brand, it is a clothing line that features “Jake” the smiling character with a short, optimistic message, “Life is Good.” [...]
Lessons on Culture and Service from Zappos
This week, I am at the International Spa Association annual conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. I’ve been excited about this year’s conference because Tony Hsieh will be the keynote speaker on Wednesday. I’ve been a fan of Tony’s for a while (see “Why Zappos is the Workplace Utopia of the 21st Century” and my article on “Psychology Lessons from the CEOs”. I also wrote a review of his book, “Delivering Happiness: [...]
The Social Contract at Work
Most employers understand their relationship with their employees as being based on a simple employment contract. The employee is provided with a compensation package including a living wage and a certain amount of benefits and in return they are expected to fulfill certain functions of the job, usually outlined in an employee handbook and/or a “standard operating procedures” (SOP) manual. This relationship is usually fraught with a certain amount of [...]
What’s Good About Unemployment?
This weeks article comes from a reader, Allison Gamble, who read my article on “What’s Good About Work?” and felt I was only telling half the story. Allison has been a curious student of psychology since high school. She brings her understanding of the mind to work in the weird world of internet marketing with psychologydegree.net. Her perspective on making the most of time “between jobs” is inspring and an important [...]
The Anatomy of a Career Path
Research by Amy Wrzesniewski while at the University of Michigan showed that people see their work in one of three very different ways: As a job (a means to earn money for survival or lifestyle,) as a career (an opportunity to learn and grow,) or as a calling (an avenue for personal fulfillment and making a difference in the world.) But how does one move from a job, to a career to a [...]
What’s Good About Work?
Let’s face it, most of us hate our jobs, and if you ask us what we hate about them, we’d be happy to tell you the stories of lazy coworkers, miserable conditions and asshole bosses. Gallup researchers suggest that “presenteeism” (the act of showing up to work but not truly contributing to the productivity of the company) costs American companies hundreds of billions of dollars. Gallup polls show that only [...]
Meet the Army’s Positive Psychology Dream Team
I previously wrote about the U.S. Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program: the army’s step towards developing a fighting force that is as psychologically strong as it is physically. The program gets some heat from critics, for a variety of reasons, but I see it as a step towards taking better care of the men and women who are fighting for our country. Ultimately, this is the largest workplace wellness intervention [...]
Business (and Psychology) Lessons from the CEO’s
To be successful as the CEO of a large company, you have to have skills that few other people have. You have to simultaneously be a disciplined organizer and a creative innovator. You have to drive the economics of your business while motivating and engaging the people in your workforce. You have to drive a large team of people to spend most of their waking hours contributing to the success [...]
Enchantment: Guy Kawasaki Wants to Cast a Spell On You
“Encantado” is the common greeting to someone you’ve just met in Mexico. In France, it’s “enchanté”. These words are awkward for a native English speaker to use, (as I can tell you as an American who has been studying both languages.) We just aren’t as easily “enchanted” as our more passionate international counterparts. In English, the word enchantment is too powerful to use as a casual greeting. It implies a [...]
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