How to Multitask Better

On September 11, 2009

How to Multitask Better

A couple of week's ago we posted on a study out of Stanford that found multitasking basically makes you bad at everything. But with teams leaner than ever and the pace of communication and business increasing steadily, plodding along doing just one thing at a time doesn't really seem like an option. In the modern office, anyone handling only one form of technology at a time practically comes off as a slacker. So how can we keep up the pace and productivity we associate with multitasking without sacrificing the quality of our work? The HBR Conversation Starter's Ron Ashkenas has an idea -- focus on value rather than volume: The answer is to shift our mindsets from a focus on...
On September 11, 2009

4 Ways to Regain that New Business Passion

Entrepreneurs, even the unintentional ones, go into business ownership full of plans, goals and big dreams. But when that new business smell wears off, it’s easy to get stuck in a grind just as tedious as a 9 to 5 job in the corporate world. Worse, the loss of that driving passion and fire [...]
On September 11, 2009

Don’t Tell Cynthia Carroll that Mining is Man’s Work

By any stretch of the imagination, it's an improbable career progression. Born in New Jersey and educated at Skidmore, Cynthia Carroll is today CEO of the world's fourth largest mining company, Anglo American plc. How improbable? When she became CEO in 2007, Carroll was the first woman and first non–South African to helm the $26 billion-in-revenue company. In fact, as a profile of the executive in the HBS Alumni Bulletin makes clear, South Africa prohibited women from working underground until just a few years ago. Her first major step was a doozie: shutting down an accident-plagued South African platinum mine and retraining its 28,000 employees. "We lost millions of dollars while production was curtailed, but it was the right thing...
On September 11, 2009

5 Ways Banks Are Using Social Media

Lon S. Cohen is a writer and Director of Communications at @ALSofGNY. He is @obilon on Twitter. Many banks have started using social websites to help them with everything from healing the financial industry to promoting their latest credit cards. By embracing the most popular tools available, the industry has also been embracing the best [...]
On September 11, 2009

Don’t Believe the Research Until You’ve Read Steve’s Post

Posting on his Small Business Labs blog, Steve King wrote: Don’t Quit Your Job Until You’ve Talked to a Small Business Failure. Amen. Everybody even thinking about starting a business should 1.) Read that post; and 2.) do what it says, talk to a small business failure. Steve cites a couple posts he’s done recently on [...]
On September 11, 2009

How Will the Recession Affect Young Adults’ Mentality?

The New York Times' excellent Freakonomics blog weighed in recently on how the current economic turmoil is likely to affect the mentality of young people who are coming of age in the midst of the crisis, citing research by economists Paola Giuliano and Antonio Spilimbergo. Their findings: Individuals growing up during recessions tend to believe that success in life depends more on luck than on effort, support more government redistribution, but are less confident in public institutions. Moreover, we find that recessions have a long-lasting effect on individuals’ beliefs. Believing that success is a crapshoot can't be good for one's morale or work ethic, but this is just one study. Younger readers weigh in: Has the recession affected your mentality...
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