 The transition to management requires a transformation of thought. By Michael Schneider
The transition from individual contributor to manager is not an easy one. In many cases, the skills that got you the promotion will not be the same ones that make you effective as a manager. Luckily, we have organizations like Google that have spent years researching this transition, to help us demystify the secrets to new managers' success. Using Project Oxygen, an internal study that analyzed more than 10,000 manager impressions including performance reviews, surveys, and nominations for top-manager awards and recognition, Google identified eight habits of highly effective managers. Google also designed a management training workshop to share its newfound knowledge with its bosses and now the world. Through the company's Re:Work website, a resource that shares Google's perspective on people operations, Google posted this training presentation in hopes that it could benefit all. Let's take a look at the six key attributes that Google instills in its managers.  In times of stress, science shows focusing on breathing can really help. ..
By Moran Cerf Breathing is traditionally thought of as an automatic process driven by the brainstem—the part of the brain controlling such life-sustaining functions as heartbeat and sleeping patterns. But new and unique research, involving recordings made directly from within the brains of humans undergoing neurosurgery, shows that breathing can also change your brain. Simply put, changes in breathing—for example, breathing at different paces or paying careful attention to the breaths—were shown to engage different parts of the brain. Humans’ ability to control and regulate their brain is unique: e.g., controlling emotions, deciding to stay awake despite being tired, or suppressing thoughts. These abilities are not trivial, nor do ...  BRIAN EVJE for Business Insider Australia
For too long, we’ve thought of “hard skills” and “soft skills” as mutually exclusive. Hard skills are supposed to provide the value, and soft skills supposed to be subordinate, inferior, and all about feelings. Some frameworks of leadership reinforce this myth by encouraging positioning leaders as above the group and magically removed from doubt and anxiety. In reality, there is nothing “soft” about the skills needed to relate to people well enough to lead them. True leadership involves both hard skills and harder skills. Here’s what I mean. Defining Hard and Soft Skills “Hard skills” are often thought of as the occupational skills necessary to complete the tangible elements of a job. A software engineer needs to know certain languages to build applications; a finance director needs to know how to balance the books; and a waiter needs to know how to take a dinner order, place it with the kitchen, and deliver the meal to the table.  Two communication experts explain why that and two other expressions could be holding you back at work. By Stephanie Fairyington, Thrive Global Senior Staff Writer
Our conversations at work are often peppered with corporate-speak that can be more irritating than useful — “Don’t reinvent the wheel,” “Think outside the box,” “We’re making a paradigm shift.” People don’t mean to be annoying — we employ these terms in the interest of efficiency, using shorthand we all easily and quickly understand. But used in excess, they can make you seem uninspired and uninventive, and sometimes, even rude. “One or two clichés aren’t going to derail your value in a meeting. But constant reference to buzzwords and jargon can make others roll their eyes,” or worse, feel condescended to, Jay Sullivan, a communications expert and author of Simply Said: Communicating Better at Work and Beyond, tells Thrive Global. To more effectively get your point across, avoid these three phrases:  Companies with strong coaching cultures drive employee engagement by John Rampton Take a moment to think about the best boss, manager, or leader you’ve ever had. Why did you enjoy working with her? What made you admire her? Did she play a hand in helping you grow personally or professionally? If you were fortunate enough to work with someone like that, I bet she wasn’t just your boss. She was also a coach who clearly explained what was expected of you while encouraging you to play to your strengths. She educated you and helped you work on your weaknesses. In other words, she empowered, motivated, supported, and trusted you. At the time, that may not have seemed like a big deal. But research has found that organizations with a strong coaching culture “reported that 61 percent of their employees are highly engaged, compared to 53 percent from organizations without strong coaching cultures.” What’s more, 46 percent in organizations with strong coaching cultures notched “above-average 2016 revenue growth in relation to industry peers.”  People are not just “self-actualizing” physically. Psychological well-being is just as popular a pursuit. By Michael Coren
Life coaches’ careers are taking off. The occupation, which hardly existed a few years ago, has now become indispensable to the careers of everyone from Oprah Winfrey and members of the (formerly wildly dysfunctional) Metallica, to average professionals trying to improve their lot. While the US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not collect data on life coaches just yet (it groups them with other types of trainers and counselors), the International Coach Federation estimates (pdf, p. 8) that there are now 17,500 coaches (outside of sports) working in North America alone as of 2015. Working with a mix of business and private clients, they earned an average income of $61,900—nearly twice the US median annual wage. Since the late 1980s, Google’s Ngram index shows the mention of life coaches growing exponentially. Google Ngram estimate of frequency of “life coach” in books scanned by Google Life coaches help their clients identify goals, remove barriers, and encourage regular progress for days or years. Most clients, according to the ICF (pdf), are managers who use coaches to help them in their career, but the number of clients using coaches in their personal life is growing as well.  Science-backed tips for how to improve your focus By Elizabeth Yuko, Staff Writer/Editor at Thrive Global
We all have days that are more productive than others, but there are some people who seem like they’re in the zone all the time. What’s their secret? Two scientists at MIT wondered the same thing, and, using the results of a survey they conducted in conjunction with the Harvard Business Review last year, they’ve narrowed it down to three habits. Before we get to those, let’s take a look at that survey. According to Robert C. Pozen, Ph.D. and Kevin Downey — the authors of the survey and subsequent HBR article — the aim of the survey was to help professionals assess their own personal productivity — meaning, the habits they associated with accomplishing more each day. It focused on seven habits: developing daily routines, planning your schedule, coping with messages, getting a lot done, running effective meetings, honing communication skills, and delegating tasks to others.
Early in the The Path Made Clear, the media mogul describes the moment she discovered her purpose. It was August, 1978, and she was working as a news anchor and reporter on People Are Talking, a Baltimore talk show—but it didn't feel right. "I knew I was not my authentic self," she writes. "And my bosses certainly made no secret of their feelings. They told me I was the wrong color, the wrong size, and that I showed too much emotion."
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