News You Can Use: 9/20/2017

  • The Surprising Upsides To Getting Angry At Work

    So it’s no surprise that in measured doses, anger can prove a useful performance catalyst. Of course, this requires self-control and emotional intelligence. If you can tap into the driving and energizing force that anger provides, you may be able to produce better outcomes than you would trying to suppress those feelings. But the key is to feel a moderate amount of anger (or what psychologists call “arousal”–the mental stress or pressure that motivates people to act) that leads to higher performance than just being pumped with adrenaline on the one hand or being too bored, calm, and cool-headed on the other.

    Likewise, anger can help you become more aware of your values and motives, highlighting your inner compass and system of beliefs so you can realize how much you actually want something–and why. Conversely, the Zen-like ability to eliminate both anger and its sources will also extinguish any passion or desire to achieve. No wonder, then, that exceptional achievers–entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and even scientists–are often motivated by an intense sense of dissatisfaction, frustration at their past performance, and even anger. They’re rebels with a cause, always work hard to create change.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40464734/the-surprising-upsides-to-getting-angry-at-work

    Yeah… measured doses

  • Blockchain In The Supply Chain: Too Much Hype

    In summary, blockchain is an interesting technology. But it may be the least mature of all the technologies described in this report. On the other hand, because blockchain is a back-end technology, most companies don’t need to proactively invest in exploring its value.  We will know the technology is mature when people don’t even use the term “blockchain,” much as people don’t use the term TCP/IP when talking about their use of the Internet. If the technology does mature, the providers of Public Cloud supply chain solutions will be adversely impacted.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2017/09/01/blockchain-in-the-supply-chain-too-much-hype/#53715b4e198c

  • What moral decisions should driverless cars make?
  • Japan Is No Place for Single Mothers

    Women in Japan tend to struggle economically following divorce. That’s because traditionally in Japan, men work, and women stay home to take care of the children. About 62 percent of women drop out of the workforce when they have their first child, according to Kingston. When couples divorce, women have often been out of the workforce for a long time. Many institutions incentivize this arrangement: Japanese corporations often give husbands whose wives stay home a bonus, and the Japanese tax system punishes couples with two incomes. When women do try to return to the workforce, they usually can only find low-paying part-time work, if they find a job at all. And women who do work earn 30 percentless than men who do.  “In both the U.S. and Japan, you have a situation where women are forced to work, but if the economy doesn’t allow women to feed a family with 40 hours a week, you have a very difficult economic situation,” Ezawa said.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/japan-is-no-place-for-single-mothers/538743/?utm_source=feed

  • Stop Calling It ‘Coaching’ When All You’re Really Doing Is Scolding Your Team

    Unfortunately, when someone is “coached” they are typically being criticized. The overuse of criticism leads to a host of problems from escape and avoidance to the elimination of related, desirable behaviors. But what’s most damaging is get a dressing down for something that bothers someone but really isn’t that big a deal. If I get an earful (does it still count as an earful if the feedback is given via email?) about the content of my emails I am likely to say “okay fine, I won’t send any emails at all.” If I get blasted for using less-than-professional language on an internal message board, I am more likely to stop reading and posting altogether than I am to watch my word choice in the future.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/299804

Photo: Andre Hunter

News You Can Use: 9/14/2016

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  • 5 Tips For Sourcing Success When Your Employer Brand Is Poor

    Instead of: providing a generic pitch to candidates of what a great employer you are, what great benefits you have, how much people enjoy working there, when you know you can’t do so with any real enthusiasm,

    You may try to: accentuate the positive aspects by speaking glowingly of the hiring manager and how dedicated he is to mentoring his direct reports. Also, you may try to highlight how much the specific division the job sits in has been outperforming the rest of the company, the unique culture of this particular team, division, and office, and how much this specific position, with this specific hiring manager, in this specific division, in this specific office, presents an exclusive opportunity for the right candidate to advance his career.

    http://www.eremedia.com/sourcecon/5-tips-for-sourcing-success-when-your-employer-brand-is-poor/

  • The jobs we’ll lose to machines — and the ones we won’t
  • To avoid supplier disputes, VW reconsiders procurement strategy

    The Irish Times explained that it is a popular practice within the auto industry to try and steer clear of relying too heavily on a single supplier. This decision, the source noted, is fueled primarily by the dispute that occurred between VW and Prevent – the parent company of the car maker’s two suppliers, Car Trim and ES Automobiluss – when Prevent licensed Car Trim to manufacture parts for luxury brands of vehicles. People familiar with the matter, the source explained, said that Prevent “retaliated by moving some of Car Trim’s financial claims against VW to Automobilguss.”

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2016/08/to-avoid-supplier-disputes-vw.html

  • GE buys supply chain software provider ShipXpress

    ShipXpress provides cloud-based software solutions, which allow transportation, industrial, and commodities businesses to effectively operate and collaborate with their supply chain partners.

    The deal is said to expand GE Transportation’s portfolio of solutions into the logistics value chain, helping to deliver information and transaction services for railroad customers across the globe.

    http://supplychain.logistics-business-review.com/news/ge-buys-supply-chain-software-provider-shipxpress-310816-4992923

  • If You Work From Home, Do This Every Day

    The art of not working requires discipline of a different sort than working. You have to discard the entrenched belief that being present at a desk is the same as being productive. And you have to become intimately acquainted with your mental needs. When it’s time to rest, you need to learn to do so without guilt. As a native New Englander raised with the classic Puritan work ethic, I can attest that this is harder to do than it looks.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/280641
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Photo: Ian Schneider

News You Can Use: 1/6/2016

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  • Are you over scheduling? (Let me answer thatYes you are)

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3054966/are-you-overscheduling
  • It’s a New Year and a New Start. How About a New Job?

    If you’ve been working for the same company for several years, are you really certain that you enjoy the work? Or have you been consumed by a hefty paycheck? Changing jobs gives you the ability to not only discover your real passion but also allows you to start making money by doing something that you actually enjoy doing for a living.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254434

  • 10 habits to be better at your job this year

    4. BE THE PERSON EVERYONE ADMIRES
    From the sought-after industry leader to the person who’s unanimously approved for the promotion, people with great reputations seem to have an easier time at success. But their status doesn’t happen overnight or by chance. The first step in being that person everyone admires is to do what you say you’re going to do. “You can have a reputation of being friendly or nice, but if you don’t get it over the finish line, your reputation will suffer,” says Grace Killelea, CEO and founder of the women’s leadership program Half the Sky

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3054489/hit-the-ground-running/10-habits-to-adopt-now-to-be-better-at-your-job-in-2016

  • Why adversity is good for your career

    STAY HUNGRY
    A benefit of starting out a lower rung is that it instills you with a drive to succeed. This, certainly, is the case of Enio Ohmaye. Previously a senior scientist at Apple, he’s now an executive at EF Learning. But he’s never forgotten the summer he spent as a busboy in Monticello, New York. He lived in a ramshackle house and was berated by the wealthy people he served. Now at the top, he is still attentive to the experience of people at the bottom: “When I interview people,” he says, “I afterwards often ask the receptionist how those people treated them.”

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3054887/how-i-get-it-done/why-adversity-can-be-the-best-thing-for-your-career

  • How to Stay Calm When You Know You’ll Be Stressed

    You’re not at your best when you’re stressed. In fact, your brain has evolved over millennia to release cortisol in stressful situations, inhibiting rational, logical thinking but potentially helping you survive, say, being attacked by a lion. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin thinks there’s a way to avoid making critical mistakes in stressful situations, when your thinking becomes clouded — the pre-mortem. “We all are going to fail now and then,” he says. “The idea is to think ahead to what those failures might be