Strategy

Where are you on the burnout scale — exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy — to fully engaged — energy, dedication, and absorbed?¹

In a 2018 paper, Seppälä and Moeller² introduce a young woman who is in a new workplace. She really liked her new job and was highly motivated to perform well. She undertook, and was highly successful at, organizing a large conference, accomplishing what was seen as a remarkable feat.
 

Several years ago, in a series of Tuesday Readings,^1,2,3 I introduced the idea that when we understand how our brain works, we can better understand why we react the way we do. I wrote, then, that an individual’s brain, in the days of our early ancestors, had one key goal – survival, avoiding threats and seeking food (rewards). And, avoiding threats had a much higher priority with five times more neural networks devoted to threat detection than to identifying rewards.  

… Which do I need?

I’ve been working on a rollout plan for a new major application. And, before I present that plan to the clients, I need to give the presentation a test run. I can ask my test audience to give me feedback or I could ask them for advice. What do I do? Does it make a difference?
 

Been gobsmacked¹ recently? You are in a team meeting and make a proposal you believe is well thought out. You feel your work is solid. A coworker viciously attacks your proposal. Or, a friend, who also is your boss’s, boss’s boss, unexpectedly calls you early one morning to strongly admonish you for a comment you had made to a student employee at a demonstration about a university action the previous evening. (Just, how did he know?) Or, a staff member asks to meet with you, her manager, and when she arrives tells you that you are arrogant and difficult to work with.

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Dave Acheson, Network Operations, Information Systems and Technology, Chapman University. His essay first appeared as a leaders program reflection earlier this year. [Dave may be reached at  <dacheson@chapman.edu>.] 
 

In previous Tuesday Readings we have focused on the importance of planning,¹ on being intentional about how we use our time,² and on the importance of regularly moving items from our one To Do list to our calendar.³ Returning to this topic as the school year begins, seems particularly important. Each year our pace seems to be more hurried and our time more precious. It becomes increasingly easy to rationalize that you can “just wing it,” that you don’t need to plan. Nothing could be further from the truth. You do need to plan.

Several years ago, at the Harvard Business School, Frances Frei, UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management, and Amy Schulman, Senior Lecturer in Technology and Operations Management, taught a new course “Why You Should Care: Creating the Conditions for Excellence” to a group with equal numbers of law and management students. The purpose of the course was to help the business and law students help each other define and achieve their own interpretations of success.
 

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a response by Dr. Nick Dedeke, Executive Professor of Supply Chain and Information Management at Northeastern University in Boston, MA to the recent Tuesday Readings on “luck.” [Nick may be reached at a.dedeke@neu.edu.]

… and Why It Matters

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Julian Koh, Associate Director of Telecommunications and Network Services at Northwestern University. Julian is an alumnus of the MOR Leaders Program. [He may be reached at  <kohster@northwestern.edu>.] 
 
 

In a 2015 Interact/Harris Poll of some 1000 U.S. workers, 91% of the respondents said communication issues prevent leaders from being as effective as they might be. The most frequent issues noted in the survey were: