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March 24, 2014
By: Adam Grant
“In Western culture, many people define success narrowly as money and power. In her uplifting book Thrive, Arianna Huffington argues that this leaves us sitting on a two-legged stool, which will tip over if we don’t add a third leg. She makes a passionate case, supported by science, for expanding our definition of what it means to succeed. One of her new metrics is giving: a truly rewarding life involves contributing to and caring for others.
I love this message. It’s a powerful call for us to become more generous and compassionate. Unfortunately, when people answer this call, they sacrifice their own success. Burning the midnight oil for other people, they fall behind on their personal responsibilities, and burn out. Reaching down to help people climb up the ladder, they get stepped on—and sometimes squashed.
After studying these dynamics for the past decade, it turns out that there’s hope. In Give and Take, I discovered that although many people give at their own expense, there’s a group of people who are productively generous. How do they do give without compromising their well-being and falling short on traditional measures of success? They reject three common beliefs about giving. As leaders, it’s part of our job to debunk these misconceptions.”
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March 20, 2014
By: Margot Murphy
Networking is simply making connections and learning about new opportunities. If these are two positive things, then why is it often such a miserable experience in business school? Is it possible to make the networking process positive?
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March 20, 2014
Today is International Day of Happiness! This article from USA Today, focused on the research of happiness, mentions both the Positive Business Conference and the work of Ross Professor Gretchen Spreitzer.
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March 19, 2014
Writing for CPA Practice Advisor, Terry Kosdrosky reports on some recent research findings by Gretchen Spreitzer and Lyndon Garrett, who have been looking into the effects of the recent trend of coworking:
“U-M Ross Professor Gretchen Spreitzer and Ross PhD student Lyndon Garrett are researching this emerging trend, and the early evidence shows it helps isolated workers thrive and be more productive. They see a couple of business models emerging, with lessons from coworking spaces that companies can adopt to enliven their offices.”
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March 19, 2014
By: Reb Rebele
“The increasingly popular refrain these days is that we (Americans in particular) are burning ourselves out by not slowing down. We are told to put down our phones, to take at least the little bit of vacation we get, and just generally to ‘unplug.’ These are all important reminders, but what if they are missing a more fundamental need? What if we have forgotten how to rest?”
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March 18, 2014
By: Aaron Hurst
“Last Friday morning I visited Cornerstone Capital to meet with Erika Karp, its founder and CEO. Erika is a former UBS executive who created her new firm to accelerate the velocity of capital by embracing sustainability. She is the first major Wall Street executive to get behind sustainability in a big way.
I arrived at 7:55 for the 8:00 morning meeting (I try to always be early). In those five minutes no fewer than five members of her team reached out warmly and asked if they could help me. It wasn’t the usual formality but felt genuine and very human. They weren’t going through a routine, they seemed to actually care.
When Erika and I sat down at 8:02, I complimented her on her team and asked her how she built what appeared to be an amazing culture.
What Erika does is very simple. She asks people if they had a good day. If they say yes, she ask them to identify the moment that made it good. She is basically asking them to name the purpose moment they experienced that made their day positive. That was the first step.”
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March 17, 2014
By: Adam Grant
“When you ask people around the world what they value most, one answer consistently rises to the top. It’s giving to the people who matter to us. We want to help others and contribute to our communities. But if you look at how we spend our time, we fail to live up to these values. I’d love to volunteer more, but I don’t have the free time. I’d donate more to charity, if only I had the money. If it didn’t require such a sacrifice, we’d all give more.
Yet there’s one form of giving that involves few costs, while offering dramatic benefits to the people around us. It’s the single best way to help someone fall in love, and the most common way that people find a job. It’s also the reason that the Beatles and the iPhone came to exist.”
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March 14, 2014
In this blog post, Al Gonzalez discusses his recent radio interview of professor Kim Cameron on the show Leading Beyond the Status Quo:
“Professor Cameron explained that to be a strong and mature leader, we need to have the courage to face those who may have done us wrong and present an objective description of the issue. Strong leaders overcome the desire to get even and are able to list the negative consequences because of the action taken against them. Unbeknown to me, Professor Cameron researched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings in South Africa and has actually visited the prison cell where Nelson Mandela was held.”
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March 13, 2014
By: YaLe Lim
A few weeks ago, Brandon Busteed (Gallup) spoke at a Positive Links Speaker Series session about lower well-being observed among college graduates.
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March 12, 2014
By: Margarita Mooney
Margarita Mooney writes about her involvement with the Calhoun Happiness Project at Yale.
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March 5, 2014
Alison Davis-Blake, Dean of the Ross School of Business, recently wrote an article for Bloomberg Businessweek urging the importance of teaching positive business:
“Leaders in business education must be prepared to give students the tools–academic and emotional–to redefine the workplace as a setting that creates both profit and meaning. At the Ross School of Business, where I am dean, we call this Positive Business, a focus on creating businesses that generate rewards for shareholders, employees, and society.”
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March 5, 2014
By: Margarita Mooney
“My recent visit with Jane Dutton of the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations inspired me to adapt some of their practical exercises for building leadership and thriving workplaces to my own classroom. Dutton and colleagues have created two tools, the Job Crafting Exercise, a tool designed to make people’s jobs more engaging and fulfilling, and the Reflected Best Self Exercise, which helps people identify their character strengths and help build on their unique strengths and talents.
Based on those tools, I created my own tool, which I called the Reflective Best Student Self and Reflective Best Classroom Exercise.”
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