Grow Your Stars -- Don't Buy Them

An interview with Boris Groysberg, Professor, Harvard Business School. Many star performers hired from outside don't perform as expected at their new company. So, develop stars within your company; for example, through strong training and mentoring programs.

What is the Happiness Advantage? by Shawn Achor

We believe we should work hard in order to be happy, but could we be thinking about things backwards? In this fast-moving and very funny talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that, actually, happiness inspires us to be more productive.

Why you should listen

Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard.
 
He is the CEO of Good Think Inc., a Cambridge-based consulting firm which researches positive outliers -- people who are well above average -- to understand where human potential, success and happiness intersect. Based on his research and 12 years of experience at Harvard, he clearly and humorously describes to organizations how to increase happiness and meaning, raise success rates and profitability, and create positive transformations that ripple into more successful cultures. He is also the author of The Happiness Advantage.

FLOW BY MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI | ANIMATED BOOK REVIEW

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Hungarian: Csíkszentmihályi Mihály, pronounced [ˈt͡ʃiːksɛntmihaːji ˈmihaːj] ( listen); born 29 September 1934) is a Hungarian psychologist. He recognised and named the psychological concept of flow, a highly focused mental state.^[1][2]He is the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College

In his seminal work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csíkszentmihályi outlines his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow—a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.^[11] The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.^[11]

In an interview with Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."^[12]

Csikszentmihalyi characterized nine component states of achieving flow including “challenge-skill balance, merging of action and awareness, clarity of goals, immediate and unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task at hand, paradox of control, transformation of time, loss of self-consciousness, and autotelic experience.”^[13] To achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur. Both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.^[10]

One state that Csikszentmihalyi researched was that of the autotelic personality.^[13] The autotelic personality is one in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals.^[14] Csikszentmihalyi describes the autotelic personality as a trait possessed by individuals who can learn to enjoy situations that most other people would find miserable.^[11] Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility.^[15]

YOUR BODY LANGUAGE SHAPES WHO YOU ARE

Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how "power posing" — standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don't feel confident — can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success. (Note: Some of the findings presented in this talk have been referenced in an ongoing debate among social scientists about robustness and reproducibility. Read Amy Cuddy's response under "Learn more" below.)

Why you should listen

Amy Cuddy wasn’t supposed to become a successful scientist. In fact, she wasn’t even supposed to finish her undergraduate degree. Early in her college career, Cuddy suffered a severe head injury in a car accident, and doctors said she would struggle to fully regain her mental capacity and finish her undergraduate degree.

But she proved them wrong. Today, Cuddy is a professor and researcher at Harvard Business School, where she studies how nonverbal behavior and snap judgments affect people from the classroom to the boardroom. And her training as a classical dancer (another skill she regained after her injury) is evident in her fascinating work on "power posing" -- how your body position influences others and even your own brain.

What others say

“Using a few simple tweaks to body language, Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy discovers ways to help people become more powerful.” — TIME Game Changers, March 19, 2012

THE PARADOX OF CHOICE BY BARRY SCHWARTZ | ANIMATED BOOK REVIEW

Laura Berman Fortgang, Speech: Find Your Voice; Find Your Way

How Incredibly Successful People THINK

How the Innocent Drinks Company began

I recently listened to a podcast where one of the founders of Innocent Drinks, Richard Reed, talked about how the company first began. It is a fascinating story with a unique method to decide if their idea was a viable business. I've shared that story here.

8 Intelligences: Are You a Jack of All Trades or a Master of One?

What does it mean when someone calls you smart or intelligent? According to developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, it could mean one of eight things.

A Habit You Simply MUST Develop

Tricks for Combatting Procrastination | Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss shares a bounty of strategies to help you really and truly overcome procrastination. And if it doesn't do it for you, hey, at least you just killed 10 minutes. Ferriss's latest book is "Tools of Titans: 

The 3 Tips For Success That Surprised Tim Ferriss

The Purpose of Friendship

Our desire to build good and lasting friendships is often undermined by a lack of focus on what friendship should really be about. Getting clear about what friendship is for isn’t cynical; it provides the foundation for genuine bonds. If you like our films, take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide

Adam Grant: Are you a giver or a taker?

In every workplace, there are three basic kinds of people: givers, takers and matchers. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant breaks down these personalities and offers simple strategies to promote a culture of generosity and keep self-serving employees from taking more than their share.

After years of studying the dynamics of success and productivity in the workplace, Adam Grant discovered a powerful and often overlooked motivator: helping others

A Look Inside An Unlikely Journey: From Olympic Skier and NFL Player to Tech Entrepreneur

Story of IDA: It’s Possible to End Poverty

Since 1960, IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest, has helped countries fight poverty. From the Green Revolution in South Asia in the 1970s to post-earthquake reconstruction in Haiti, IDA has been there. A mural commissioned for the 2016 World Bank Annual Meetings brings the story to life.

Why You Can Change The World

Though it looks like the world is set in its ways, it is in fact eminently open to change by those who dare to swim into the stream of history. If you like our films, take a look at our shop. 

Tim Leberecht: 3 ways to (usefully) lose control of your brand

The days are past (if they ever existed) when a person, company or brand could tightly control their reputation — online chatter and spin mean that if you're relevant, there's a constant, free-form conversation happening about you that you have no control over. Tim Leberecht offers three big ideas about accepting that loss of control, even designing for it — and using it as an impetus to recommit to your values.

It's Really About Core Values

Hear from Mike Santoro, president of Walker Sands Communications, about how his love for writing and reading at a young age has made his career successful today.