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One of the dominant narratives in the media is that we need to produce more workers now who can do whatever is needed now, using short-term post-secondary certification programs. The focus is typically on “vocational” skills, contrasted with what too often are characterized as relatively useless liberal education outcomes. Of course, short-term vocational skills-based programs are critically important and well suited for many people. But this is not an acceptable policy choice for addressing the demands of the 21st century workplace and fixing the shortcomings of American higher education. Abbreviating post-secondary preparation programs may well reduce short-term costs for students, institutions, and many employers. However, privileging short-term job training over demanding educational experiences associated with high-levels of intellectual, personal, and social development — a foundation for continuous life-long learning — is a bad idea for individuals, for the...

For many of us, the initial response to stress is to look for external fixes. We turn to productivity tools or apps that promise to help us manage mounting pressures or we look for ways to alleviate our discomfort: find a different job, hire a new employee, or switch careers. But these solutions are often temporary and ineffective. Managing stress over the long-term requires cultivating skills that help you turn changes, stresses, and challenges into opportunities. Start by reframing how you think about stress. Shift your focus from eliminating day-to-day pressures to changing your perception of them. Recognize what you can and can’t control. For example, you may not be able to change other people’s behavior, but you can still take positive action. Better understand the root causes of your stress and identify possible ways to alleviate them. Finally, ask “What can I learn from this?” instead of “Why me?” to shape the challenge to your advantage. You can even jot down...

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The prevailing wisdom says that negative thoughts and feelings have no place at the office. But that goes against basic biology. All healthy human beings have an inner stream of thoughts and feelings that include criticism, doubt, and fear. David and Congleton have worked with leaders in various industries to build a critical skill they call emotional agility, which enables people to approach their inner experiences in a mindful, values-driven, and productive way rather than buying into or trying to suppress them. The authors offer four practices (adapted from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT) designed to help readers do the same:

Recognize your patterns. You have to realize that you’re stuck before you can initiate change.

Label your thoughts and emotions. Labeling allows you to see them as transient sources of data that may or may not prove helpful.

Accept them. Respond to your ideas and emotions with an open...

When you’re burned out, you often feel like your circumstances are out of your control But this victim mindset only blocks you from doing anything about your situation. Instead, you need to believe that you have the ability to make choices to improve your present and future. You also need to believe that taking actions will change the way you feel. You aren’t a victim of your feelings. Then, increase your attentiveness to your body’s physical and emotional needs. Get more sleep. Take breaks during the work day. And, finally, consider whether you can make changes to how much work you’re doing. Can you ask for a deadline extension? Or take yourself off that committee? Or go on a vacation? These things may seem difficult to do but question whether you’ve made assumptions about what’s possible. By changing your mindset and taking small action you’ll feel more in control and begin the process of feeling less burned out.

After working hard for long hours and toughing it out, we at least expect success. However, more often than not, at the end of the day we are exhausted and still have a long list of tasks to complete. Why does this happen? According to the authors, working adults have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be resilient. Yes, resilience involves working hard, but it also requires one to stop, recover, and then begin the hard work again. Recovery is key to maintaining good health, but also preventing lost productivity. To build resilience, you need to be willing to stop. This means spending some time away from your phone, eating lunch away from your desk, and actually using your vacation time.

Sometimes there’s so much going on in your life, and the broader world, that you can’t focus. What can you do when every time you sit down at your desk, you feel distracted? Start by understanding the impact distractions, like a constantly pinging phone or even a quick Twitter break, have on your brain. Multitasking doesn’t work and has high cognitive costs. When you find yourself distracted, use a simple breathing exercise to break the immediate cycle of anxiety and frustration. Acknowledge those feelings, but don’t get swept up in them. Think about how you want to act as a colleague and a leader and let that self-image guide your behavior. Be sure to set clear boundaries for yourself around when you’ll go on social media or check email. And be mindful of whom you spend time with. Because of social contagion, colleagues who are overwhelmed and distracted are likely to make you feel the same way. Try to make your relationships supportive: Ask coworkers for advice and...

In many organizations, our leadership readiness is measured in part by our willingness to speak up in a meeting.Here are three strategies for speaking up effectively. First, prepare comments or questions before the meeting so you’re not speaking entirely off the cuff. Remind yourself why you care enough to speak up about the subject. Pause and breathe so you can speak with the full weight of your conviction. However, just because you know how to speak up doesn’t mean that it’s always appropriate. Here’s when you should hold back. Don’t speak up just to show off or ramble. If other people need a chance to process or speak up themselves, don’t jump in with the answer. If something is better as a one-on-one conversation, save it for later. Speaking up is one of the single-most effective ways to increase visibility and build trust with your clients and colleagues.

What are we really searching for when we say we want more “meaning” at work, and how does it differ from happiness? Philosophers, scholars, artists, and social psychologists have struggled to come up with an answer to that question for years. According to research by psychologist Roy Baumeister and colleagues, five factors differentiate meaning and happiness. The author describes them and then offers practical advice on ways to find more meaning in your work.

The Dalai Lama shares his observations on leadership and describes how our “strong focus on material development and accumulating wealth has led us to neglect our basic human need for kindness and care.” He offers leaders three recommendations. First, to be mindful: “When we’re under the sway of anger or attachment, we’re limited in our ability to take a full and realistic view of the situation.” Also, to be selfless: “Once you have a genuine sense of concern for others, there’s no room for cheating, bullying, or exploitation; instead you can be honest, truthful, and transparent in your conduct.” And finally, to be compassionate: “When the mind is compassionate, it is calm and we’re able to use our sense of reason practically, realistically, and with determination.”

If you want to deliver a spellbinding presentation, rehearse far more than you’ve done in the past. But you don’t want to sound too rehearsed, so you’ll need to balance memorization with spontaneity. Nail down the first two and last two minutes of your speech, and leave room for improvisation in between. And practice under pressure. This mean rehearsing in front of one or two people to get your body used to being in front of a crowd. Then ask for feedback, and rehearse again.

Don’t be afraid to laugh out loud in the office. A series of studies shows the positive impact humor can have in the workplace. For one, it can reduce stress. “When you start to laugh, it doesn’t just lighten your load mentally, it actually induces physical changes in your body,” the Mayo Clinic explains. It enhances your intake of “oxygen-rich air,” increasing your brain’s release of endorphins. Laughter has also been shown to boost productivity. A group of researchers found that after watching a comedy clip, employees were 10% more productive than their counterparts. And another group of researchers found that cracking jokes at work can even make people seem more competent. So, within the bounds of decency, laughter on the whole is a good thing, and the benefits far outweigh the risks.

There is a paradox around vacations. We all know that it is important to get away from the office periodically. Time away from work gives you a chance to relax, to reduce stress, renew your ties with your family, and to get away from problems you have struggled with so that you can think about them differently on your return to the office.

However, as a vacation approaches, we generally look at it with dread. There is too much work to be done! There are new projects starting and others that need to be completed. How could we possibly have selected this particular week to go away? It can get so bad that you might think twice before planning another trip.

Why is it that a vacation seems like a great idea when we first plan it, but feels like more and more of a burden the closer it gets?

It all comes down to distance.

Over the past 15 years, quite a bit of research has focused on what Yaacov Trope and Nira Liberman call construal level theory....

There are typically two ways people try to deal with work stress. One is to simply “buckle down and power through”—to focus on getting the stressful work done. Professional workers often have a “bias for action” and want to find a solution quickly. The other common tactic is to retreat—to temporarily disconnect from work and get away from the stressful environment. Unfortunately, both of these approaches have pitfalls. Continuing to work while stressed and fatigue can tax us and lead to worse performance. And while a reprieve from work can offer temporary relief, it doesn’t address the underlying issues causing the stress in the first place.

Research suggests a third option might be more effective at helping us manage stress and its effects: focusing on learning. This can mean picking up a new skill, gathering new information, or seeking out intellectual challenges. In two recent research projects, one with employees from a variety of industries and organizations,...

What working parent hasn’t felt guilty about missing soccer games and piano recitals? Almost two decades ago, though, researchers surveyed nearly 900 professionals about their relationships with their work and their children, and found that parents’ working, even for long hours, did not hurt children. What they did find was that parents who were distracted by, or obsessed with, their work, did see an impact on their children. This is likely only more problematic today when digital devices are omnipresent. The lesson: don’t worry about whether you attend every soccer game. But when you do show up, put your phone down and be there for your kid.

The careers of talented executives are often derailed by seemingly trivial issues, many of which are utterly fixable. Think of these types of issues as “pandas.” Pandas look innocent, but their powerful jaws deliver a bite stronger than a jaguars’. Pandas can be painfully costly to individuals whose careers stall for reasons unbeknownst to them and to organizations and managers unable to develop talented leaders to their full potential.

Bill Rielly had it all: a degree from West Point, an executive position at Microsoft, strong faith, a great family life, and plenty of money.  He even got along well with his in-laws!  So why did he have so much stress and anxiety that he could barely sleep at night? I have worked with Bill for several years now and we both believe his experience could be useful for other capable, driven individuals.

At one time, no level of success seemed enough for Bill. He learned at West Point that the way to solve problems was to persevere through any pain. But this approach didn’t seem to work with reducing his stress. When he finished his second marathon a few minutes slower than his goal, he felt he had failed. So to make things “right” he ran another marathon just five weeks later. His body rejected this idea, and he finished an hour slower than before. Finally, his wife convinced him to figure out what was really driving his stress. He spent the next several...

Turning a corporate climate pledge into reality is a complex endeavor. Watershed, a software startup co-founded by Christian Anderson, is committed to using data to cut corporate emissions fast. In conversation with Azeem Azhar, Christian shares the challenges of putting this dream into practice.

They also discuss:

The news headlines about what perks or elements of office design make for a great employee experience seem to be dominated by fads — think treadmill desks, nap pods, and “bring your dog to work day” for starters. But in a recent poll of 1,614 North American employees, access to natural light and views of the outdoors was the number one attribute of the workplace environment outranking stalwarts like onsite cafeterias, fitness centers, and premium perks including on-site childcare. There are wellness and productivity implications, too: academic research has found that workers with natural daylight in their office environments reported a 51% drop in the incidence of eyestrain, a 63% drop in the incidence of headaches and a 56% reduction in drowsiness.

There’s that project you’ve left on the backburner – the one with the deadline that’s growing uncomfortably near.  And there’s the client whose phone call you really should return – the one that does nothing but complain and eat up your valuable time.  Wait, weren’t you going to try to go to the gym more often this year?

Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them?  Not to mention how much happier and more effective you would be?

The good news (and its very good news) is that you can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy.  Figuring out which strategy to use depends on why you are procrastinating in the first place:

Reason #1   You are putting something off because you are afraid you will screw it up.

Solution:  Adopt a “prevention...

You’ve always been a high achiever—top of your class, captain of your sports teams, star performer at work. Now, you’re going to be managing a team of high-performers in a division of your company that everyone’s buzzing about. You’re confident that you can navigate this new challenge with characteristic success.

You’re pumped. You set clear goals for yourself and targets for the division. You’re well aware that you’ll need to rely on your emotional intelligence skills to understand and work through your new team’s dynamics. You’re focused on achieving your goals and getting results… but before long, you’ve got problems. Your team doesn’t seem to be on board with your plan and they’re not delivering. Worse, they seem to be shutting you out. In desperation, you go to a few trusted mentors who tell you:

“You’ve inherited the cream of the crop. I’m not sure they even really need a manager, they’re that good and that motivated.”

“These are our stars. You...

Great leaders are great learners. Their never-ending pursuit of information pushes them to constantly improve and sets them apart from the rest. Feedback serves a crucial role in this process, but getting and learning from it isn’t always easy. If you want to get the feedback that is necessary to improve your leadership, there are a few steps you can take. First, build and maintain a psychologically safe environment. Sharing feedback is often interpersonally risky. To increase the likelihood of your colleagues taking that risk with you, show them that their honesty is valued. You can do this by asking open-ended questions like, “What did you hear when I shared my strategy?” or “How did it feel to you when I sent that email?” Next, be sure to ask for both positive and negative feedback. Listen carefully when receiving it — even if you disagree. You may feel happy, angry, confused, or frustrated by what you hear. Recognize that your reactions are about you, and...

Government-mandated reporting of gender pay discrepancies has been a subject of much debate in the last 5-10 years. Those arguing for this legislation argue that it will help to address the persistent gender wage gap. Opponents insist that not only is that unlikely; it will also increase companies’ administrative burden and decrease profits. Until recently there has been no strong evidence to support either side. However, researchers have just conducted the first empirical study on the impact of mandatory wage transparency. That study’s results suggest that disclosing disparities in gender pay does in fact narrow the gender wage gap. The results showed that from 2003 to 2008, the gender pay gap at mandatory reporting firms shrank 7%, from 18.9% to 17.5%, while the gap at control firms stayed steady at 18.9%. This improvement came without a negative effect on firms’ net income.