Dave's Library

Homogenous groups aren’t as effective as they seem.

There are many interview questions that inspire dread in an interviewee — from “What’s your greatest weakness?” to “Tell me about yourself.” But one in particular is especially complicated: “What are your salary expectations?” If you go too low, you might end up making less than they’re willing to pay. But if you go too high, you could price yourself out of the job. In this piece, the author offers practical strategies for how to approch this question along with sample answers to use as a guide.

Few organizations provide strong guidance or training for managers on meeting individually with their employees, but the author’s research shows that managers who don’t hold these meetings frequently enough or who manage them poorly risk leaving their team members disconnected, both functionally and emotionally. When the meetings are done well, they can make a team’s day-to-day activities more efficient and better, build trust and psychological safety, and improve employees’ experience, motivation, and engagement at work. The author has found that although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to one-on-ones, they are most successful when the meeting is dominated by topics of importance to the direct report rather than issues that are top of mind for the manager. Managers should focus on making sure the meetings take place, creating space for genuine conversation, asking good questions, offering support, and helping team members get what they need to thrive in both their short-term performance and their long-term growth.

Meetings have proliferated—now everyone just wants them to end. “Sometimes it’s just someone talking nonsense about something”

Some bosses believe in-person bonding is more important than ever in a hybrid work era. Mandatory fun time with colleagues fills a lot of people with dread.

On the evening of January 26th, 2023, from the comfort of his home in Palo Alto, California, Ed Schein logged onto his computer one last time to join an Immersive Learning Circle with participants from around the world. Ed was joined by his incredible son, Peter Schein, and a great mix of Organization Development (OD) enthusiasts, emerging and seasoned practitioners, and professors. All of us were eager to absorb Ed’s unrivaled insight and passion, but none of us realized we were about to bear

It was too easy to fall into a sedentary lifestyle. I had to come up with a self-care regimen.

A limited yet growing body of research suggests that one of the most powerful ways to support someone is also the simplest: Start a conversation.

As business needs and relationships at work continuously change, so does the relative influence of certain departments. In this piece, the author offers strategies to follow if you’re getting the sense that your department is being cast aside: 1) Reflect on the root cause of your exclusion; 2) Tie your department’s work to clear business needs; 3) Broaden your perceived value; 4) Keep driving results; 5) Build up those that are coming up after you.

The hesitance to ask for help can keep us bogged down in more work than is necessary and is a key contributor to feeling constantly overwhelmed at work. In this piece, the author outlines six strategies for unlearning old, unproductive patterns that prevent you from reaching out for assistance when you really need it.

In this article, we’ll outline the ways that the “family” metaphor can lead to dysfunction. As well as the steps team leaders can take to transform their dysfunctional fake families back into the thriving work teams they were trying to build in the first place.

Dave Stachowiak and Bonni share an update on our PKM systems on episode 445 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast

Across our society today, norms of noisiness run deep. Demands like constant connectivity and maintaining a competitive advantage still prevail in most office cultures. Few organizations prize or prioritize pristine human attention. But there are simple strategies we can employ in order to find our own personal sanctuaries and to shift broader cultures. By reclaiming silence in the workplace, we can create the conditions for reducing burnout and enhancing creative problem solving.

“I don’t know who needs to hear this but Neil Diamond, who retired from performing five years ago because of Parkinsons, just had a Broadway show of him open and it at the opening night he did this”

Learn the 5 steps to have have more productive, human conversations at work. Short video mino course. Free access to your team. Improve communcations.

The exact language you need to politely escape from all sorts of irrelevant, time-wasting, or misdirected asks.

Effective mentoring is a valuable but often overlooked method.

Companies such as Walmart and Delta Air Lines and Maryland’s state government have reduced requirements for some positions and shifted their focus to skills.

Is decentralized social media the future?

In the initial stages of your career, one of the most important things you can do is build relationships that will have a significant impact on your life over time. These five relationships can accelerate your path to a promotion, increase your visibility within an organization, and stretch you beyond your comfort zone into to the leader you aspire to be. Mentor: A mentor can help you broaden your functional expertise, grow your emotional intelligence, and learn your company’s unwritten rules. Sponsor: While mentors give you advice and perspective, sponsors advocate on your behalf and in some cases, directly present you with career advancement opportunities. Partner: A partner is an ally or peer who can serve as a sounding board to broaden your perspective. This relationship is fueled by trust, a shared drive to succeed, and the recognition that you can do better together. Competitor: Competition between peers is inevitable. And, when used correctly, it leads to improved performance, breakthrough ideas, and greater drive to get things done. Mentee: Becoming a mentor will teach you how to bring out the best in others, recognize their strength, give feedback, and coach. In turn, it will push you to be better and to strive for more.

As a manager, a central part of your job is to develop people. But when you delegate a task to someone — with no prior training — simply because you are unavailable to do it, their chances of succeeding are slim. Managers need to stop thinking of passing off responsibilities as delegating, and start taking on the mindset of a trainer. If you do, you will naturally look for ways to give a little more responsibility to the people who work for you. Start by gauging who on your team genuinely wants to move up in the organization, and identify their main areas of interest. Create a development plan for them and write down the skills they will need in order to reach their goals. Then, focus on giving them assignments that require those skills. Help them work their way up to a challenging task by starting with a series of practice sessions. The first time you introduce a task to someone, let them shadow you while you explain some of the key points. Then, give them a piece to do on their own with your supervision. Only let them carry the full load when you sense that they are ready. By doing this, you are helping your supervisees reach their career goals, and creating a team of trusted associates who can step in when you are overwhelmed or out of the office.

Can't stop thinking mean thoughts about yourself? Researchers and psychologists share how to break the cycle.

The ability to work remotely has become more valued than ever before, and that’s not going away, particularly among younger workers. Even in organizations that remain committed to offering employees significant remote or hybrid work, there is often a desire among leaders to foster togetherness with a return to in-person learning events. But as learning professionals, the authors hear many myths when it comes to what in-person learning — or in-person experiences more generally — can actually achieve. Here, they’ll dispel the ones they hear most often and show you how to maximize connection from in-person learning events.

Negotiation experts have long confirmed the intuition that that being warm and friendly pays off at the bargaining table. Recent research finds that people also tend to believe niceness will buy them better deals — but when put to the test, this prediction turns out to be wrong. It appears that being firm can sometimes lead to better deals, at least in a distributive or single-issue negotiation, than being warm.

Emotional, sensitive, intuitive leaders will be vital to any organization that hopes to achieve success in the next decade.

Collaborative bosses can use curiosity to escape the echo chamber of their own ideas

Two years of remote work has brought more meetings, but no solutions to making them more effective. A new study reveals the eye-opening costs.

We all have to deal with irrational people. How can we bring them back to sanity and have fewer arguments? Here's what experts advise...

Our work is ever-changing. But the way we collect feedback is stuck in the past.