I while back I did an interview with professor Benjamin Hunnicutt about his new book called “Free Time – The Forgotten American Dream.” My favorite thing from our chat was his story of what happened at the Kellogg’s factory during the great depression in the ’30s. Instead of laying people off, they changed to 6-hour shifts, so the workers … Continue reading What if a 6-hour work day would let us do MORE work?
The articles on this blog have been viewed more than 10,000,000 times. I can hardly believe it. Here are the 10 most popular of all time. 10: Top 5 reasons why “The Customer is Always Right” is wrong The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of … Continue reading Our 10 most popular articles ever
I’ve written a lot about the obsession companies have with tracking and increasing employees’ working hours – based on the myth that working more hours leads to better results. But the clearest and most concise commentary on this comes from Zach Holman of American software company GitHub, who puts it like this: Hours are bullshit! … Continue reading Stop obsessing about working hours
This article from Harvard Business Review by Matthew Lieberman asks whether leaders should focus on results or people. It quotes a study by Jamez Zenger from 2009 who found that: If a leader was seen as being very strong on results focus, the chance of that leader being seen as a great leader was only … Continue reading Should leaders focus on results or on people? The answer is Yes!
I was interviewed for this excellent article in Forbes. Here’s how the article opens: Nobody needs telling that the years since the financial crisis struck have been tough. Across Europe, the United States and the rest of the industrialized world, employment levels are only just starting to pick up, while growth in emerging markets has … Continue reading Forbes: Managers Should Spread A Little Happiness This New Year
Here’s a fascinating Swiss study into the effects of raises and pay cuts. The result: Wage cuts had a detrimental and persistent impact on productivity, reducing average output by more than 20 percent. An equivalent wage increase, however, did not result in any productivity gains. The cool thing about this study, is that it was … Continue reading Swiss study: Pay cuts lower performance, raises don’t improve performance
Yesterday some of my most fundamental assumptions about work and life were challenged. I had the pleasure of skyping with Benjamin Hunnicutt, professor at the University of Iowa and author of a new book called “Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream.” Hunnicutt showed me that about 100 years ago, most people fully expected work to … Continue reading Free Time – A Forgotten Dream
I found an excellent blog post about Wisetech Global, an Australian IT company with a somewhat… different attitude to overwork: If employees work more than 40 hours a week regularly, they have to talk to their manager to redress the situation. … WiseTech Global chief executive Richard White said the company’s approach was consistent with … Continue reading Memo from one boss: Don’t work too much!
An article called The Dangers of Viewing Work as Play by Zeesham Aleem makes some great points about shifting working conditions and the need for organized labor, but then goes on to argue that being happy at work is basically impossible. I found the article because I’m mentioned in it: Google is known for promising … Continue reading New article says happiness at work is impossible. I don’t buy it. Surprise :)
“Cognitive illusions can be more stubborn than visual illusions” – Daniel Kahneman (Source) This quote explains why many workplaces are still unhappy even though we all should know by now, that happy workplaces are not only more fun but also make more money. In the image above, every horizontal line is perfectly straight. Don’t believe … Continue reading Much of what you know about business is wrong. You will continue to believe it even now that you know it’s wrong.
