by Nora Battelle
Dealing with a toxic coworker is a uniquely difficult situation: You probably don’t have the ability to cut off a relationship with that person, as you would a friend or romantic partner. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to accept the status quo indefinitely. In fact, it’s crucial to find a healthy way to navigate a difficult working relationship. Left ignored, it can become perilous for you, your team and your company’s bottom line. In a seminal book by psychologists Alan A. Cavaoila, Ph.D., and Neil J. Lavender, Ph.D., called Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job: Working with Narcissists, Borderlines, Sociopaths, Schizoids and Others, the authors highlight a staggering stat that’ll make you feel less alone as you traverse this tricky terrain: Of the 1,100 employees the duo surveyed, 80 percent of them reported experiencing moderate to severe stress as the result of dealing with a toxic coworker, whether they were a boss or subordinate.
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by Mayo Oshin, Juggling ideas at the intersection of science, art and philosophy.
We’d like to think that we can multitask — respond to emails, text messages, toggle between multiple tabs on a browser and scroll through social media feeds, whilst working on important tasks — but, our brains would say otherwise. According to neuroscientists, our brains aren’t built to do more than one thing at a time. And when we try to multitask, we damage our brains in ways that negatively affect our well-being, mental performance and productivity. Here are nine ways multitasking is killing your brain and productivity. 1. Multitasking can lead to permanent brain damage A study from the University of Sussex (UK) compared the brain structure of participants with the amount of time they spent on media devices i.e. texting or watching TV. by Nora Battelle, Multimedia Staff Writer at Thrive Global
76 percent of Americans — a clear majority — said they have or recently had a toxic boss, according to new research conducted by Monster and released today. A positive work environment is crucial to performing good work — and to managing your own stress — and leadership often plays a vital part in setting that positive tone. Toxicity, in the survey, took several different forms, and the numbers on all of them were high: 26 percent of bosses, according to Monster’s survey, are “power-hungry,” 18 percent are “micromanagers,” 17 percent are “incompetent” and 15 percent are simply absent (“What boss? He/she is never around,” as the survey phrased it). These numbers are a stark contrast to the 19 percent of employees who see their boss as a mentor and the 5 percent who indicated that their boss is someone with whom they have “the best relationship.” Alan Benson, Ph.D., a professor of Work and Organizations at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, explains the significance of these numbers to Thrive Global:...... by Rosamond Hutt, Formative Content World Economic Forum
We know that different cultures prefer different leadership styles. Now new research shows how different countries favour certain character traits at work. If you’re a straight-shooter who likes to tell it as it is, you might fit in well in the Netherlands where employees like their bosses to be direct. On the other hand, if you’re a more diplomatic leader who always wants to keep business conversations affable, you might do better running teams in New Zealand, Sweden, Canada, and much of Latin America. This is according to business psychologists Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Michael Sanger, who argue that successful leadership is largely about “personality in the right place”. In an article for Harvard Business Review, they discuss research showing that leaders’ decision-making, communication style and so-called “dark-side tendencies” are influenced by the countries they’re operating in. Here’s a look at how six major leadership styles might fit with working cultures in different geographical locations: by Benjamin P. Hardy, Author, husband, father
According to the British philosopher, Alain de Botton, “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.” How different is your life, right now, from where you were 12 months ago? If it’s quite similar, then you haven’t been learning very much. To learn, by nature, is to change and evolve. In order to change and evolve, you need to regularly create peak experiences — those moments which create deep awe, gratitude, and a shift in how you see yourself and the world. When was your last peak experience? What was the last time you flexed your courage muscles? When was the last time you tried something that might not work? If you’re ready to make wild progress during 2019, you need to make some tweaks. This isn’t anything to be upset, distraught, or frustrated about. Life is, inherently, a learning experience. Life is beautiful. You get to have fun with it. One thing that is really beautiful about moving forward intensely in your future is that, simultaneously, you change your memory about the past. The past, regardless of what it has been — great or disappointing — will change in meaning as you make new decisions in your future. Your future is flexible. Your past is also flexible. What you have is now. You get to decide what you’re going to do. You get to decide how you’re going to live. Look around… No one is stopping you. Want to make a shift? Here are 30 behaviors to get you started: 1. Wake Up Earlier “You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling, than feeling yourself into action.” — Dr. Jerome Bruner by Marcel Schwantes
Nobody likes to fail. Yet failure is the secret to success. If you haven't been rejected a number of times, the current mantra goes, you just haven't experienced success. Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, swears by this premise. At Virgin, they encourage and even celebrate failure. There's an underlying theme there that, without trying something new and failing, it's virtually impossible to innovate and grow. Branson says, "Do not be embarrassed by your failures. Learn from them and start again. Making mistakes and experiencing setbacks is part of the DNA of every successful entrepreneur, and I am no exception." Wherever you are on your career path, it's time to acknowledge that failing is common, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. But here's the thing. There's one superhuman quality -- a mindset -- every person needs to master on their journey of failing forward. Without it, you may as well toss in the towel now and never try again. I speak of resilience. by Christopher Peterson Ph.D.
When positive psychologists advocate a strengths-based approach, I hear it as an important correction to decades of interventions (in clinics, schools, and workplaces) that focused on problems and their remediation. I do not hear it as advice to ignore weaknesses and problems or as an assertion that change is only possible if a person is already skilled at something. Somehow this completely reasonable advice has been morphed into the completely unreasonable proposal that only strengths matter, and I have been asked repeatedly about the evidence in favor of addressing only one's strengths if one wishes to achieve a good life. We don't need studies to refute the claim that only strengths matter, just common sense. Regardless of what they do especially well, workers need to have the "strength" of showing up on time, and they need to have the "strength" of being minimally civil to their coworkers. And so on. by Marcel Schwantes
So much has been written about the burgeoning happiness movement. While combing through my own research and notes on what happy and successful people do, it struck me how intentional they are about choosing the right mindset to become happier and more optimistic. While countless books have been written on happiness, I'm narrowing this article down to a working template for living life to the fullest. Here are seven sure signs of the happiest people. 1. They choose to have healthy relationships. I've learned to be picky over the years about whom I let into my inner circle of friends. Why? Because I believe close relationships are the key to sustaining happiness. One profound longitudinal study proves this. For 80 years, researchers followed 268 men who entered Harvard in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. by Suzie Doscher
Feel like you keep facing the same uphill struggle? Sometimes you create your own problems with your thoughts and beliefs. It is these particular thoughts that hold you back, keep you stuck and consequently limit you. In my coaching practice as well as my own personal experience, I have witnessed how a self-sabotage routine can be created with these thoughts and beliefs. If you find that you keep coming back to the same type of situation again and again, it is well worth exploring if, in fact, you are running a self-sabotage routine. To break this self-sabotage cycle, you will need to first determine what this limiting thought or belief is. Once you have figured that out (by yourself, with the help of a friend/boss or qualified coach), consider the information below to help yourself make a lasting change. The best approach is to replace whatever you are thinking is with a thought that is more positive. For example: Wiggling your toes, strategic doodling, |