civility

October 24, 2012

Got Culture?

Social psychologists and business theorists have used the concept of culture to analyze organizations since the 1940s. In 1982, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman brought the concept into the spotlight with In Search of Excellence. The concept of corporate culture is now widely recognized. Google corporate culture and a quarter of a billion hits describe the concept, use of understanding and methods to change culture. Two distinct views of culture emerged in the 1980s; adaptationist and ideational. Peters and Waterman, among others are proponents of the adaptationist view, defining culture by customs, ceremonies and patterns which can be observed by […]
September 27, 2012

Too Focused To See

People continue fill each day to its maximum. As the world appears to get smaller and move faster, lack of time to relax, think and plan may lead to poor choices, anxiety and incivility. There is a myth that the Indians didn’t see Columbus’ ships because they couldn’t relate to such a large object on the water. It’s believed the myth is based on Captain Cook traveling to Australia. The aborigines didn’t acknowledge the ship until men approached the shore by canoe. Was it that the aborigines couldn’t see the big ship? Social scientists exploring this phenomenon of perceptual blindness […]
January 26, 2012

Working harder, not smarter.

The Great Recession has increased the workloads of 80% of employees according to a recent Workforce Management online poll of over 700 HR professionals. Of those with greater workloads, 80% reported a decrease in engagement as well as more than 40% reporting an increase in employees’ health problems. Overloading employees does not appear to gain greater market share or profitability. High performance companies have a high-energy, high- performance workforce. Tony Schwartz, author of several books including Be Excellent at Anything studied violinists, athletes, nurses, teachers, police officers and others to evaluate what excellent performers do differently than others. He recommends […]
November 1, 2011

Recognize Sabotage

Sabotage is a term about work. The reference started in the mid-1800’s when French factory workers threw their wooden clogs (sabots) into machines to stop production. The term refers to any activities that intentionally reduce productivity. Generally, sabotage refers to workers who resort to production interference to express discontent about current management practices. Sabotage includes intentional behaviors directed toward interfering with an individual’s productivity. Sabotage is a form of incivility. Like incivility, sabotage has a wide continuum of activities from working slowly to destruction of property. Like incivility, sabotage is vague and difficult to identify such as, omission of information […]