Hugh writes about the benefits he experienced from getting back to reading actual books, as opposed to being constantly caught up in digital flows of information. I started to wonder: could training myself to read books again help me manage the digital information stress in the rest of […]
A couple of weeks ago I referenced an article on the power of belonging to an open network. One of the quotes that came across my desk today (as an avid collector of good quotes, I have a database that sends me 1/30th of my quote collection every […]
Writing on HBR, Nicole looks at how technology is making social skills more important. There are a couple of reasons for this: people who can coordinate among themselves are more flexible than computers and machines, and it is hard to automate these types of interactions. A new NBER […]
Writing on Medium, Michael explores the power of an open network as a contributor to career success, and uses it to analyse what made Steve Jobs so successful. Of course, we can equally apply the core idea to our individual, group, and organisational work too (please click through […]
The ability for people doing similar tasks to talk together helps with both productivity and retention. A recent analysis at Bank of America demonstrated this dynamic for call centre agents, reinforcing the productivity-driving benefits of strong ties: Humanyze’s smart work badges contain microphones and and precision positioning technology. […]
In 10 Leadership Lessons from the IBM Executive School, August Turak writes about collaboration done wrong. Lesson six from the school is: 6. Great Leaders Stick Their Necks Out. It is a natural human trait to fear being evaluated. We crave wiggle room so we can deflect blame […]
On slide 29 of my presentation on Cultivating Collaborative Behaviour, one of the ideas is to participate in “30 minute randomly assigned video chats.” One company that is actively encouraging this approach between its employees is Fog Creek: One initiative we’re trying at the moment is CoffeeTime. CoffeeTime […]
I gave the presentation above a couple of weeks back to a small group of wonderful people, and have finally had the time today to share it here. The presentation looks at the fundamental human practices of collaboration, and gives a series of strategies and approaches for individuals, […]
A recent BusinessWeek article talked about the work at JPMorgan Chase to predict patterns of behaviour in order to allow the bank to have an early warning system on employees who may be trending toward misbehaviour. The summary on the web says: JPMorgan is responding with efforts to […]
In a recent BusinessWeek article on Recruiting Preferred Skills (print edition, April 13-19, 2015), I was initially surprised and then delighted to see the prominence placed on the “ability to work collaboratively.” It was very cool to see the reality of collaborative capability being emphasised by corporate recruiters. […]
Michael Sampson 
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