Today, I want to share an interesting article I came across from Gallup, titled “Are Remote Workers and Their Organizations Drifting Apart?” The article states that employee engagement in America is on the rise. But there’s a red flag: Remote workers appear to feel increasingly disconnected from their organization’s mission and purpose. Why is this a concern? Well, according to the article, it can impact job performance and employee loyalty. Therefore, managers are advised to “hold one meaningful conversation per week with each employee” to keep them engaged. I find this fascinating. I don’t understand why we’re so focused on where people perform their work. If people’s engagement in their…

For centuries, people have believed that among our earlier ancestors, men were hunters while women were gatherers. But a growing number of archeological findings are proving this to be wrong. Among other things, women in numerous societies have been found buried with big-game hunting tools. After analyzing data from dozens of foraging societies around the world, scholars at Seattle Pacific University, US, have found that women hunt in at least 79% of these societies. And why wouldn’t they? The first human societies were small. In these so-called band societies, there lived 20-40 individuals. To survive, our ancestors had to make use of each other’s skills and differences: regardless of gender or…

Many companies claim they’re value-driven. They have values displayed on websites and intranets, they’re printed and hung on walls and repeated at conferences and in advertisements. But displaying values and living your values are two very different things. Values are meant to guide the owners, managers and employees of a company when doing business. But for many companies, values appear to be something to strive for, rather than something to live by. And the difference is important. For example, a common value is honesty. Now I believe that companies with this value want to be honest, but what happens when things get tough? When telling the truth means losing a large…

Many of us are fortunate enough to live in a democracy and most of us still defend the idea that a society should be governed by the people. And yet many are convinced that people need leaders to guide them. Now, think about it. How can we argue that countries should be governed by the people and at the same time believe people must be led? It’s like saying we need a democracy where people are told how to vote. What worries me is that hardly anyone considers the absurdity of it all. We are so deeply influenced by the leadership industry that we don’t even realise how it’s affecting our view of…

Most people (including scholars) believe that we follow a person because of his or her personality or behaviour. In other words that we follow individuals we look up to, admire, get inspired by, etc. Meaning we follow individuals because of who they are.  This is a myth. As we discussed in the previous post before Christmas, we follow those we believe are best suited to help us reach a goal or solve a task. It would be ineffective, and frankly quite stupid, for a group of people to follow a single individual all the time. Especially if the only reason we followed was that a person was charismatic, inspiring, or what…

We’re quickly approaching Christmas and the end of 2022. So I thought I’d end this year with a video showing some of the images produced since January 2022. I wish you a great holiday and a happy new year and I’ll see you all early 2023. Until then – stay safe!  Chris  https://youtu.be/w19cYH_ChbY Please note that you have to accept cookies on this site in order for videos to work. For more information, please visit our cookies page.