June 11, 2016
How we respond to others is largely a function of habit. Many small, repetitive, automatic responses that grow over a long period of time form habits. Mostly, these reactions are outside of our conscious awareness. They’re built on foundations formed by our beliefs, and in most cases, they stayed fixed, usually reinforcing old beliefs and naturally – old habits. Charles […]
April 21, 2016
“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.” Anthony Brandt We all bring it – we all have it. It is a matter of degree – and awareness. In every interaction we have at work, we bring the dynamics of our families, culture, generation and gender with us. The first problem is that most of us […]
March 17, 2016
Ever wonder what’s in that bag? By now the term emotional baggage is familiar – but what do we think is in the bag? Surely it’s packed with old hurts, resentments and fears, but unless we go in there and pay some attention to those unwanted feelings – the bag stays full. If we’re not the type that likes or […]
March 14, 2016
Writing in The New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope wrote in (Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Suggests) “Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family? That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion – how kindly people view themselves. The research suggests that giving […]
February 1, 2016
“If we are lucky, we mourn our losses.” Miriam Greenspan Language and culture shape how we interpret and define our emotions. We tend to forget that, but it is particularly enlightening when it comes to understanding more about grief. All emotions are experienced through the lens of culture, and grief is a feeling many cultures dread or are, at […]
January 11, 2016
Do you know about the marshmallow test? No, it’s not about seeing how many marshmallows you can toast and eat by the fire. It’s the classic Marshmallow Study conducted in 1968 at Stanford University by clinical psychologist Walter Mischel that became one of the longest running experiments in psychology. The initial study examined 600 children to see how they would […]
November 20, 2015
“Fear does not predict the future: it only tells you that you are afraid. The trick is to recognize the emotion when it emerges, accept it, discover its source and decide what to do with it.” Jay Uhler, Organizational Psychologist Needless to say, fear is a common emotion in these times. This is a natural reaction, especially in light […]
October 20, 2015
“The fantasy about organizational life is that people will behave in logical, unemotional and well-organized ways. It’s as though the boxes on the organizational charts are designed to keep the messiness of reality, people and emotions away from work.” Dan Oestrich and Kathleen Ryan, co-authors, Driving Fear from The Workplace. How is it that with so-called flattened hierarchies, employee engagement […]