How Google and Amazon workers keep their focus September 15, 2014 Harriet Green examines the Two Pizza Rule and the benefits of workplace mindfulness. Distractions can be crippling to productivity. Gloria Mark of the University of California found that, on average, office workers are distracted every 11 minutes. And worse, it takes 25 minutes to return to a task once you’ve wandered onto something else. [...]
Business lessons from Formula 1: Have you overloaded on talent? September 14, 2014 Paolo Aversa explains what Formula 1 can teach business about the perils of having too many star performers. You pack your team full of high-fliers and wait for profits to take-off. But instead of hitting new heights, the team spirals into a nosedive. The reason? You overloaded on talent. It sounds counterintuitive (surely recruiting [...]
The new rules of career planning: Embrace chance September 11, 2014 Even our best laid schemes have the nasty habit of going awry WHERE would you like to be in a decade’s time? It seems a natural question. Surely the captains of industry didn’t get to where they are today without the requisite amount of career planning and strategic networking? This may have been the case [...]
Wearable tech: Is it set to take over the City? September 10, 2014 Imagine the end of desks, and watches that log your billing time APPLE’S move into wearable tech this week may have disappointed investors (its shares ended the day 0.4 per cent down after the grand unveiling of its unabashedly rectangular Apple Watch), but the hype surrounding the wider wearables market has hardly dampened. NPD Group [...]
The simple ways to master your LinkedIn account September 9, 2014 Be cut-throat with previous jobs, but think before rejecting people IT’S SEPTEMBER – the back-to-school month when hiring and switching jobs always cranks up. And in London, hiring is now rising at its fastest pace since before the financial crisis. According to a new study from recruiter Manpower, staff are being taken on across all [...]
What business can learn from the underdogs September 8, 2014 Be positive, and remember that you could be the game changer FROM unlikely World Cup winners, to politicians and Harry Potter – everybody loves an underdog. A 2010 study by Anat Keinan, Jill Avery and Neeru Paharia looked at the sway the underdog business holds with consumers over the big players. Their hypothesis was that [...]
World record holder Michael Johnson: Encourage employees to act like athletes when it comes to far-off goals September 7, 2014 Claims that elite sports men and women have something to teach businesses are often (rightly) greeted with scepticism. Sir Alex Ferguson’s lectures at Harvard Business School aside, the topic can be dominated by empty phrases like “hard work” and “will to win”, with few specific pieces of advice or strategies translating from one domain to [...]
Four ways to beat procrastination September 4, 2014 An “active” approach and making use of others can help you take the bull by the horns. If you procrastinate, you’re not alone. A survey last year, released by Crucial.com, showed that 75 per cent of Brits are living with the constant burden of procrastination guilt – even putting off simple household tasks. And [...]
The nap debate: Is an afternoon kip a good idea? September 3, 2014 The cosy, pro-sleep consensus is showing signs of breaking. The nap is in – there’s no doubting it. Once associated with laziness (consider the saying “caught napping”, or “sleeping on the job”), a growing body of research touting the health benefits of an afternoon kip has seen the practice receive endorsements from Google and [...]
How to end the tyranny of futile work meetings September 2, 2014 Cut down on numbers and be sure to avoid red wine discussions. It's not exactly novel to argue that meetings can be a waste of time. That was persuasively done by Jason Fried, a tech entrepreneur (predictably), in his 2010 Ted talk titled Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work. Meetings can be the place [...]