Would you like a slice of joy with that?

I’m familiar with gratitude diaries, giving thanks for my blessings and many other versions of this concept …and … Chade-Meng Tan has just put the icing on the cake, so to speak, in his new book Joy on Demand.

As he describes it: in every day there are tiny moments of joy. Here are just a few of mine: a pinky-orange sunrise, the feel of the sun on my back, the aroma of coffee, the feel of a warm hand in mine, the satisfaction of helping someone, the way my body moves to a well-loved tune, an internet story about people doing good in the world, the athleticism of Roger Federer, (more…)

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Learning Decision Making from Alessi

Explaining the decision making skills of a professional or experienced manager to newcomers to the role, is one of the most difficult challenges I face as a learning designing, and the most satisfying when it is done well. Long ago, I learned that people are frustrated when they hear “it depends” but that’s usually what experienced people offer as an answer.  So even though it’s true – good decisions do depend on assessing a number of factors in the situation – the key is to simplify those factors, without creating simplistic formulae that don’t actually work.

A recent Fast Company article describes how  Alberto Alessi, the Head of the Alessi design house, analysed over 300 of his “gut feel” decisions to create a mathematical model he called “The Formula”, which predicts the reaction (i.e. likely buying volumes) of customers. (more…)

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Trust in teams – encourage team reasoning

Thanks to Kevin Hogan for alerting me to new research which continues to chip away at the bedrock belief – in economics and management – that we are all selfish.

Researchers, Andrew Colman, Briony Pulford and Jo Rose from the University of Leicester, conducted experiments that show evidence of collective preferences and team reasoning. This contrasts with decision theory and game theory, which fundamentally assume that people will always make decisions to maximise their individual best interests.

The research shows that under certain conditions, people will attempt to maximise the collective benefit, rather than their own personal benefit.

The questions this paper raised for me was – what are the conditions under which people will do this and how can we develop team reasoning in our teams?

(more…)

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