The Founding Fathers created many historically important, country-defining documents. Think: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Rules of Baseball (which established our national pastime, granting it independence from the tyrannies of cricket, rounders and stoolball). [...]
In the chemistry of an organization’s culture, empathy is the catalyst that energizes a motivating, mutually beneficial deal between individuals and their companies. Relationships based on empathy feel comfortable, like those well-worn slippers you [...]
Empathy, that uber-noble source of human connection, is really about other people’s shoes: standing in them, walking a mile in them, commiserating with the cobbler’s children who lack them and are forced to wear [...]
How is interpersonal trust like a butterfly’s wings? It’s compelling and functional: beautiful to behold and good at providing uplift. It’s also difficult to create – just ask the caterpillar – and fragile, more [...]
Imagine you work in a small high-tech company, and this is what the CEO says about his ideal workplace culture: “Fire people who are not workaholics. Come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not [...]
It’s Monday morning, and you’re standing at the edge of a swamp. Looking out, you see many hazards: dark, dangerous water; patches of earth that look like quicksand; and trees with hanging clumps [...]
A career in banking can seem very attractive: high salaries (for some anyway), good working conditions and prestige. But beware. Employees in corporate banking jobs across 26 countries experience higher stress levels than people in other finance careers, according to a recent study.¹ One person described a job in banking this way: “You will be required to work very [...]
Edgar Schein, one of the leading academic theorists on corporate culture, defines culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that a group has learned as it solves problems of external pressure and internal cooperation. These [...]
