The Spreading of Toxic Attitudes

Toxic Attitudes spread quickly throughout a department and can become embedded in the culture in a way that eventually impacts performance. The selection of managers should include personality in order to ensure that the organization maintains a positive place to work where people feel free to perform at their best. Entire departments that under perform can often be traced back to leadership and the rewards systems.

Poor attitudes and even worse communication skills lead to toxic environments. We are herd creatures and we take cues from each other. People with power who have negative affectivity beget more negativity as people pick up on their cues and react accordingly. We have all experienced people who "tick" us off and put us in a poor mood.

The problem is that we don't stop the chain. Our mood changes and we impact the next person. Some of us are more emotionally developed and can put people's behavior in context but most of us just transfer it onto the next person. Eventually we can have an entire culture of negativity that impacts performance.

Imagine if you walked into a place everyday and most of the people were engaging in negative thinking. Basic civility and kindness went out the window. Without realizing it you will begin to feel like your "walking on egg shells" within the workplace. The high stress and agitation can cause all types of problems.

Performance declines and cynicism becomes more rampant. Changing the toxicity of an environment requires either a surgical or scorched earth approach. Surgically you can spend the time investigating procedures, reward allocations, employee attitudes and personality to see what specifically is causing the problems. Scorched earth means throwing out the players with big attitudes and changing everything within the department. If you forget to hire better next time or adjust the reward mechanics you might find yourself back with a toxic environment in a few years.

When Systems Fail Themselves

When organizations lose focus on their mission they are in serious trouble. All systems have a purpose and when the individual components lose their way the entire system veers off course. A few degrees and 5 years down the road the organization is in big trouble. Ensuring everyone is focused on the mission is important for sustainable success.

Sometimes people work in a silo and fail to understand the bigger picture of the organization's purpose. Each person focuses on their individual job and conducts their work in a routine and don't think much about it. That is they don't think about it until something happens that forces them to get a bigger picture.

It is important for companies to ensure employees not only understand the mission but also their job and how that job fits with the other jobs around it. Each job works in conjunction with others and understanding the wider network also helps in putting each action in greater context. Each task takes on more meaning when it has a bigger purpose.

All decisions should be made with the greater purpose in mind. If this does not happen smaller objectives begin to take precedence and it could threaten the entire organization. How does a splintered organization survive when it becomes a bundle of self-serving mini objectives? The answer is it doesn't. Its synergy and bounded rationality dissipates and it becomes its own biggest market threat.

The Art of Reading Faces in Negotiations

The art of reading faces is ancient and comes from the subconscious and biological need to understand each other. Animals and humans have the same ability to read body language and get impressions of another's intentions. Learning how to understand those cues and use them in negotiations creates advantages the opposing side may not have. Conceptually blending the information makes additional clarity on which pathways to use to achieve goals.

Imagine if you were able to understand what a person was thinking without actually having any magical ability to do so. If knew what they wanted and understood their environment you may be able to reasonably get an impression of their thinking. It isn't always correct but you can be accurate enough to test their thinking with your own words and comments.

Consider the environment and context of the facial expressions first. Look at what they are doing, what people are talking about, where their focus is, and under what circumstance they are participating. You should be able to get a better impression of the forces and factors on each person in the room.

View their facial expressions and try to determine what they mean. Is the person's facial expressions positive, negative, joyful, upset, distracted, etc...? There are at least 21 facial expressions that we use to express our emotions. Emotions are based on the way in which we think about things.

Therefore, if you match the environment, behaviors, context and facial expressions together it is possible to determine the latent functions going on in the brain. The more you know a person the better off you are able to read their expressions because you have a context for their baseline behavior. Changes mean something is going on.

Reading people is an important but not easily developed skill in negotiations. Understand what people say and why they say it makes a huge difference. People reveal information and understanding how that information fits with the negotiation can give you a tip off on what people are willing or not willing to accept. Negotiations is not only about having a position but also about finding out how to get the other side to agree to that position.

What Your Smile Says about You?

You wouldn't think a smile would say much about you but it does. Smiles signal friendly intentions and help people open up to you about their needs, wants, desires, life, and motivations. A good smile is contagious and can make its way throughout an organization. Even though who are not aware that someone is smiling will still feel a positive impression toward that person.

If you want someone to listen to your message you should smile. A good smile lets them know you are open to them and like them as a person. It may  not be true but the concept stays the same. A solid simple can be overt overt or non-verbal based upon its intensity.

This can lead to more honest with employees which creates awareness of your department. When people feel positive feelings toward their boss and trust that boss it puts the boss in the center of information which is important in proper management. 

Knowing which type of smile to use and when is important. When you don't know someone try not to give a huge smile as it may hint that you are sneaky, have ill intention, or something to hide. Try and subtle smile with accents of something bigger when the person says a key point or something interesting.

Practicing a non-verbal smile you can use with everyone, a large smile in exciting situations or when you know the person, and the casual positive smile in daily conversation can be beneficial. As people respond to your positive impression with a positive response you will find your relationships improving and more people willing to listen to you.

When To Multi-Task and When to Focus

We hear about the benefits of multi-tasking but often fail to understand when it is more beneficial to focus on a single task. The difference lies in cognitive load and the amount of effort it takes to complete tasks. Some types of tasks require too much focus and effort to complete while others don't require much attention and are beneficial for multi-tasking. Knowing the difference can help.

When To Focus: Focus is best when the task is complicated and it takes considerable effort to complete. Your brain can only handle so many tasks at once. Ensuring you are reducing distractions and competing projects helps in using all your energy in completing your primary work.

When to Multi-Task: Work that is routine, doesn't require much thought and small mistakes dont matter. Let us assume you are filing papers, cleaning your desk and having a routine conversation on the door. Pretty simple. Your cognitive engagement on each task is low and therefore you have the capacity to do multiple work.

Digging Out Higher Education Strategies

Higher education needs strategy in the same way as business, government and non-profit organizations need a strategy. Strategy helps ensure that universities will maintain their relevancy long into the future.  The strategy but will rest in a number of common factors that impact all higher education institutions. Government funds may support a university but don't not necessarily determine its viability.

Quality of Curriculum: Curriculum and the quality of the information it contains is important for developing student minds. Quality includes the faculty members and their ability to develop solid educational plans, incorporate their personal and professional knowledge, and relay that information in ways to leads to higher levels of growth.

Core Student Demographics: Each university has its own core demographics much like each business has its own customers. These students create a profile of what the "target market" looks like that is used in designing courses, services, messages, and facilities. Some schools will focus on the elite, some on the middle class and others on lower income.

Marketing/Public Relations: Marketing  and other public information leaves impressions in people's minds that help formulate public image. Public image is also influenced by all positive and negative information available.  The total impression creates the perception of value in consumers minds.

Stakeholder and End User Needs: Society has needs and will seek to make those needs known through a variety of channels. Sustainable universities will understand those need and adjust their processes to ensure they are meeting these needs. Stakeholder and end user needs often include quality of education, return on investment, employer needs, research for societal enhancement, etc.

Government Regulation: Government regulations will determine how schools are expected to operate and the potential consequences for not operating in that manner. There will be laws that restrict the use of funds, have operating requirements, political maneuvering, etc. that will impact the form and nature of education within the country.

Emerging and Long-term Trends and Strategies: All entities are subject to the changes and needs of market trends. Schools should do their best to capitalize on emerging information and trends. This can include the form of school such as the original rejection and then acceptance of online coursework.

Poem: Desert Dust and Life Wins

Few things are void of life. Under the wood, rocks, and debris are seeds that may have sat dormant for centuries but will come back out. With a little water, life grows again making the desert green. Something that looks barren could have lots of behind the scenes activity occurring waiting for its chance to blossom.

As humans we look but don't often see. Looking is only the act of taking in images and impressions from our environment while seeing is understanding what all those images and impressions mean. Understanding takes much more effort and background information than simply seeing.

The lesson we should learn from the poem is that just because something looks a certain way doesn't mean we understand its complexity. There are lots of mechanics of things going on and under the right circumstances things begin to grow again.

Poem: Desert Dust and Life Wins

The heat roasts the desert floor,
The sand is parched brown.

Barren views of mountains,
Nothing but miles of desert.

The scorched earth appears void of life,
Seedlings are nestled in the ground.

It doesn't take much to bring them to life,
A little rain and they come out of their shell.

Under the best efforts of the sun,
Life blooms again because it must.