says it's possible for the manager to convey emotions that are both authentic and positive, saying something like, "I know you're worried. Things aren't looking good, but you know, we have a way out of this and we can work [on it] together." The employees will appreciate the honesty and take comfort in the optimism, she says. Emotions as Valuable Data Emotional intelligence -- buzz words already familiar in psychology and education -- is now talked about in business circles as well, Barsade says. Business schools are teaching executives how to be emotionally intelligent, and how to manage the emotions of their employees. "The idea behind emotion... posted on Aug 25 2012 (38,116 reads)

any manager wish for that kind of loyalty and commitment? Support for this view comes from research by Jonathan Haidt at New York University. His research shows that seeing someone help another person creates a heightened state of well-being that he calls “elevation.” Not only do we feel elevation when we watch a compassionate act, but we are then more likely to act with compassion ourselves. When Haidt and his colleagues applied his research to a business setting, he found that when leaders were fair and self-sacrificing, their employees would experience elevation. As a consequence, they felt more loyal and committed and were more likely to ac... posted on Nov 25 2013 (29,798 reads)

putting others first, matchers go out of their way to dole out a bonus, in the form of compensation, recognition, or recommendations for promotions. Of course, these responses aren’t limited to matchers. Givers, too, are motivated to punish takers and reward fellow givers. But I’ve found that in the workplace, the majority of people are matchers, which means that they are the ones who end up dispensing the most taker taxes and giver bonuses. In an interdependent, interconnected business environment, what goes around comes around faster than it used to. At Google, for example, an engineer named Brian received eight bonuses in the span of a single year, including three in j... posted on Oct 14 2013 (5,865 reads)

find her tasks to be especially fulfilling, she might derive meaning from other aspects of her job, such as friendships with colleagues. So, what are the sources of meaningful experiences at work? We have compiled a list of ways that work can become more meaningful, based on our reading of literature in organization behavior and psychology. Purpose 1. Contributions beyond yourself. The people at the nonprofit Kiva channel micro-loans to poor people who can use the money to get a small business going and improve their lives. Their work clearly has a greater purpose—that of helping people in need. This taps into a longing to have a meaningful life defined as making contribution... posted on Dec 30 2013 (38,084 reads)

– an amazing feat for any student (the following video details his journey from childhood to college). ​ Although there were many potential scholarships available when Derrius sought financial aid, there were no resources on how to apply effectively. Upon his college graduation, Derrius made it his mission to help other promising students tap the potential financial resources available for higher education. He founded Million Dollar Scholar, a social business that bridges the scholarship information gap and provides tangible resources to help students gain financial-aid to fund their dreams. He talks about his business and “how-to” boo... posted on Dec 28 2013 (27,347 reads)

on Facebook but have forgotten the art of loving each other in real life. Disconnection is a growing epidemic.  And it’s not a problem isolated to teenagers. It’s a growing problem the workplace. According to a recent study 70% of people are emotionally disconnected at work. And yes we even have a price-tag for that disconnection. It’s calculated to be 300 billion dollars in lost productivity annually. So this is not just a social or spiritual problem. It’s also a business problem, an economic problem. What’s the solution? Making meaningful products is worthwhile and necessary. But it’s not enough. In fact another study recently showed that the m... posted on Jan 15 2014 (90,177 reads)

mindfulness to be just another buzzword or New Age fad, think again. Mindfulness has been around for centuries and has now made the transition from Tibetan monasteries to the corporate boardrooms of America. In "The Mindful Revolution," a recent TIME magazine article, Kate Pickert says that already many devotees see mindfulness "as an indispensable tool for coping—both emotionally and practically—with the daily onslaught." Is it worth your while, as a business owner, to pay attention to this trend? The Meaning of Mindfulness One of the best definitions of mindfulness comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus at the University ... posted on Jun 1 2014 (144,076 reads)

help us to tap into a sense of play and boost our powers of creative thinking. And regardless of whether your day job is creatively fulfilling or not, a creative side hobby that's fun but challenging can be beneficial in a number of ways. Having an outside-work hobby you enjoy (and that also challenges you and keeps you feeling engaged) can relieve stress and give you a new way of thinking -- and it's a good reminder that work isn't everything. Some of your best ideas for a new business plan may not come while you're sitting in front of the computer with the cursor blinking, but instead when you're in a completely different headspace while engaging in a fun creative ... posted on Aug 19 2014 (28,236 reads)

This innovation therefore has the potential to create enormous opportunities for students, employers, and star teachers even as it upends the cost structure and practices of traditional campuses. Capturing the promise of this new world without losing the best of the old will require fresh ways to square radically expanded access to world-class instruction with incentives to create intellectual property and scholarly communities, plus university leaders savvy enough to shape these evolving business models while they still can. Consider the first of the two converging trends. As is well known, frustration with the performance of traditional institutions is mounting. Only six in ten st... posted on Nov 26 2014 (13,387 reads)

some people (three I know personally) have changed careers to work on the new economy after hearing such stories. While not everyone can be just like Brice, he can help us take a little leap of faith that gets us all closer to an economy and culture we actually want to live in. Brice Royer gives a speech alongside the Mayor of Vancouver Mira Luna: What does gift economy mean to you? Brice Royer: For me, the gift economy is about family. It's about not turning love into a business. I learned that the "gift economy" is just a term used by university professors to talk about what people in small towns do naturally and how ancient human societies lived. They hel... posted on May 25 2015 (23,404 reads)

promised myself then that if my sight came back, I would find my purpose. I knew I’d gone completely off my path and become a really depressed and irritable person. I was very lucky, and my sight did return, so I developed my own personal development course – ‘Emergency Zen’ – which I still run. And then I started to work out what I really wanted to do with my life. Nursing made my heart sing, especially the emergency side, and I had a lot of other life and business skills as well. I realised that I wanted to help people living under dire stress in the hell holes of the world – people who didn’t have a safety net. But it was only when my daug... posted on Feb 11 2016 (12,772 reads)

WARY OF EGO Arrogance can develop within artists, either from artists who believe that their status makes them more important, or those whose association with a creative field entitles them to some sort of superiority. Beware of ego; creativity cannot flow when only the ego is served. WORK TOWARDS A BUSINESS WITHOUT BORDERS The medical field has an organization called Doctors Without Borders. This lofty effort can serve as a model for transcending the limitations and strategies of old business formulas which are designed to perpetuate old systems in the guise of new ones. We’re speaking directly to a system that’s in place, a system that conditions consumers to purchase... posted on Mar 16 2016 (17,451 reads)

monitors for years. Nobody bought one. Dell came out with MP3 players and PDAs, and they make great quality products, and they can make perfectly well-designed products -- and nobody bought one. In fact, talking about it now, we can't even imagine buying an MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy one from a computer company? But we do it every day. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. Here's the best part: None of what I'm telling you is my opin... posted on Jun 20 2016 (23,586 reads)

and intuitive connection to the world went into overdrive like a sixth sense. When his hearing was surgically restored two years later, the medical miracle ignited his passion for music and science which he channeled into his wildly successful 30+ year career as the CEO of the world’s largest and most-awarded audio communications agency, Elias Arts.  It's from this uniquely intuitive and empirical place that he stands against the conventional economic thinking that businesses exist simply to make a profit. Scott’s work is a force for bringing out the very heart and soul of business.  By designing for love in some of the world’s biggest comp... posted on Mar 16 2017 (8,102 reads)

the Post-Autistic Economics Network, a virtual gathering space for those working for greater pluralism in economic thinking. This network, whose web page speaks of a commitment to ‘sanity, humanity, science’, is in many ways a powerful counter to the neo-liberal orthodoxy.3 As the journey branched out further, I found myself in the company of computer visionaries who led the free software and open source movement which has expanded creative freedoms and challenged conventional business models. It has done this by demonstrating that cooperation is, in many situations, a far more powerful mechanism than the command and control approach on which much of conventional business o... posted on May 10 2017 (7,307 reads)

businessman Edmund F. Benson, together with his wife Susan, declined to rest on their laurels when their well-earned retirement began.  Instead, the energetic and service-committed couple in some ways just began (again) their service journeys during their golden years.  They devoted their retirement to establishing the ARISE Foundation in 1986, a global skills-teaching program for at-risk youth.  The Foundation has had a remarkable history and impact, from its initial focus on environmental education for young people to now addressing a range of needs for the young, the elderly, and many populations in between. What follows is the edited transcript of an Awakin Call in... posted on Nov 1 2017 (8,436 reads)

[Mas] was born in Japan and grew up there in the 1950s. He came to the U.S., arriving in San Francisco in 1970. He remembers the day, March 1st. He was 21 years old.—R. Whittaker works:  What was your first impression? Masahiro Nakajima:  Kind of freedom, was my first impression. My friend, Japanese second generation, picked me up and drove to his house in Hayward. works:  Did you feel constrained in some way in Japan? Mas:  Yes, especially by family business obligations and expectations. And in 1970, Tokyo was very crowded, I mean terribly crowded all over. And transportation was not good—like China right now, with smog all over. works: ... posted on Dec 4 2017 (27,455 reads)

follows is the transcript of an Awakin Call interview with Sr. Marilyn Lacey in August of 2019. You can listen to the recording of the entire call here.  Mercy Beyond Borders Micro-Ent moms in Uganda grateful for their business loans Pavi Mehta: Now it's my pleasure to introduce Sister Marilyn, who just flew in from Haiti six hours ago and graciously joined us this morning. Sister Marilyn Lacey is the Founder and Executive Director of Mercy Beyond Borders, a nonprofit organization that partners with displaced women and children overseas to alleviate their poverty. She's been a Sister of Mercy since 1966 and holds a Master's degree in Social Work from ... posted on May 6 2021 (3,613 reads)

think we have to love our sense of place, and champion the heck out of it,” says Greg Tehven, who is turning the world of economic development on its head and inviting people to build the communities they want to live in. Confronted with the business failings of his beloved hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, he asked himself what the community could offer to the public, that would help get it back on its feet. An unexpected answer surfaced, based on the city's small population and open spaces: drones! Fargo now hosts an annual drone conference attracting attendees from around the world. The town has quickly become an appealing city for college graduates, business leaders, an... posted on May 11 2020 (3,425 reads)

do business and spirituality meet? How does one use creativity to unite? How might we walk our unique path in solving problems outside and dissolving the ego inside?    A weekday brand-consultant, a weekend rock-climber, author during nights and a lifetime seeker of Truth -- Kiran Khalap’s journey is a striking example of a life of emergence which defies linear planning.  At the early age of 17, when most are concerned about grades and friends, Kiran’s strongest yearning was “to know the Truth”. He read most contemporary philosophers and ancient scriptures, but finally it was J Krishnamurti’s words which c... posted on Sep 25 2020 (4,555 reads)