Neurobiology is telling us we can read another person’s emotions, and we know that positive emotional states foster business success. When people are in a positive emotional state, their cognitive ability is significantly enhanced and their ability to be creative is elevated. As leaders, we can learn to monitor the emotions of our employees and teams, but it requires that ...
Continue Reading →Per the emotional intelligence guru, Daniel Goleman, the emotional state of a business organization is the number one determinant of its success. Yet new discoveries in neurobiology are showing us that emotions are transmitted in surprising ways that transcend all borders. As leaders, we must become more mindful of who is setting the emotional tone of our businesses, including those sitting outside its walls.
The Reach of Emotional Energy
Emotions literally run rampant among people. Just by being in proximity of each ...
Continue Reading →As leaders, we need to know what’s going on with our teams and employees. Are they facing major obstacles? Is their rational thinking overridden with fear?They’re not always willing to say they need help, as they may perceive it as a sign of weakness or they may believe there will be negative repercussions. Now science is showing us how to read the emotions of other people, so we can proactively offer help.
Taking Empathy to the Next Level
Empathy is the act ...
Continue Reading →It’s generally considered good business practice to make decisions based on data rather than on our instincts. We believe data holds the key to an objective and therefore superior answer, whereas our instincts introduce a subjective and therefore inferior perspective. However, we believe this only because we have not learned to use our instincts with accuracy. Among other things, they’re useful in choosing our teammates and partners.
More ...
Continue Reading →I think we would all acknowledge that people perform better when they’re feeling positive, so as leaders we naturally want our groups and organizations to be positive environments. However, most leaders are not aware of the factors that influence the positivity of environments. We think we’re controlling environments when we monitor what’s said and done, but experimentation tells us that thoughts themselves become pervasive and set the tone in an environment.
A Revealing Experiment
Consider this exercise that I often conduct ...
Continue Reading →We can do a better job of sparking the human spirit in business by changing the way we structure organizations. Outsourcing is generally thought of as being detrimental to the human spirit because it takes jobs away from people, usually for the purpose of saving money. However, there’s also a positive aspect to outsourcing in that it helps align employees with the companies for which their jobs are integral. In groups where this alignment exists, there is a potent energy ...
Continue Reading →As I read about how the leaders of our nations are attempting to solve our global economic issues, I can’t help thinking they’re on the wrong track. They appear to believe that tweaking the levers of the financial markets until they find the right settings will turn the markets around. These tactics won’t lead to the secure prosperity that people are seeking, in the same way that when we use similar tactics in our businesses, they don’t lead to sustained ...
Continue Reading →Research shows that when businesses place a greater priority on serving the public interest, they actually make more money. This is not so surprising when we look at the science behind it.
The Business Research
There is an amazing amount of research that shows when a company engages in positive action in the form of practices that benefit society, it receives positive rewards in the form of profits. And it’s revealing that conventional researchers have not been able to determine why. By ...
Continue Reading →I’m discovering that in some way we all share a fundamental connection. There’s evidence that our brains share a connection and we’re even drawing from the same memory. I can’t articulate how this works, and believe me when I say I have scoured the scientific publications for a viable theory. I can only report that this unexplained connectivity does exist because I’ve seen the evidence from so many credible sources.
This research leads me to conclude that in some way, at ...
Continue Reading →Once we reach a greater understanding of how the thought energy in an organization, in addition to actions, is influencing outcomes, many of our focuses will change. Today, we place a huge emphasis on monitoring how employees perform, as far as the actions they take, but we place very little emphasis on understanding the thoughts behind their actions. Today we only care that an employee is motivated to perform, but in the future we will care about why an employee ...
Continue Reading →
