Money can buy you happiness—but only to a certain amount. Experts reckon the correlation peaks at around $75,000 per year, and employees whose salaries rise above this cutoff are not reporting any major boost to their happiness levels. They're not even feeling less sad. And that might throw a major monkey wrench into how we think about motivating people at work.
Everyone likes the security of being in control of their time and their environment, but some people like predictability more than others. Guardian personalities (ESFJ, ISFJ, ESTJ and ISTJ) are hard wired to seek out situations they can control, where they do not feel any risk and where "business as usual" reigns supreme. This preference sounds great on the surface, but it has a habit of binding Sensing-Judgers in imaginary shackles that prevent them from taking on any challenge that might not be successfully overcome.
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ISTJ,
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ISFJ,
ESFJ
In just 10 minutes, you can accurately predict whether your team will perform well or badly on a certain project – and it's all to do with how they communicate. Here are six of the most destructive types of communication that may be hindering your performance, plus tips for what you can do to improve your communication skills across the board.
Meetings bring results and solve problems – theoretically. In practice, they can lead to nothing, waste dozens of labor hours and throw up some of the most idiotic suggestions you've ever heard in your life. And in the end, no one feels responsible for implementing what has been decided. Why do we even bother if there are no motivational or productivity gains to be made?
It seems that everyone hates feedback. Employers and managers hate giving it as much as employees hate receiving it. No matter how tactful you are, or how thick-skinned your employee is, it doesn't take much for it all to go pear shaped. We're sensitive souls when it comes to the judgment of our work effort. It doesn't take much criticism to shatter our self-esteem.
So, how do you tell an employee there's room for improvement and leave them feeling inspired? Here are some tips.
The role of the manager is not to change the personalities of her employees to fit into a mold. But inevitably, you will be tasked with managing personalities who are just plain difficult. From the guy with the huge ego who thinks he knows more than you do to the talented loner who refuses to collaborate, some people do not want to be managed - and they may respond poorly to your efforts to do so.
How to react? By adopting one of the responses below.
Picture this: you've built a successful company from the ground up with dozens—maybe hundreds—of employees. But you are dissatisfied with how your staff are working. You're paying them well, and they all have terrific skills, but they just don't seem to be as dedicated, or as loyal, or as happy as you need them to be. What's going on?
Every workplace suffers conflict; it's unavoidable. And this being a personality blog, we spend a lot of time blaming it on personality clashes. It's comforting to think that all we have to do to stop conflict is take a personality test, recognize each other's quirks and foibles, and make sure certain people never work together. Analyzed through the personality lens, workplace conflict doesn't seem like a big deal at all.
Picture this: you walk into the office one morning and there's already a heated conversation going on. Brandon is berating Donna for not responding to his emails and causing him to miss an important deadline. Donna is furious with Brandon because she thinks his criticism is unfair – she has been snowed under with other commitments and helping Brandon did not feature highly on her list of priorities. She's upset that he's shouting at her in such an insensitive way.
We all know of those all-hands sessions where senior management announces the big, corporate goals that will determine the next few months and years. For some, it's energizing to hear about the great vision the organization has set for itself. Everyone should feel like they are contributing to the success of the business, and some personalities – notably Intuitives – get a real buzz when they feel part of something big.
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