Problem Solving: Define Problem

One mistake that people often make when they are faced with asituation is to jump straight into finding solutions, giving littlethought to defining the problem. For example, a hotel managersaw a sudden dip in occupancy rate, and asked the staff topropose “ways to increase the occupancy rate.” Everyone wentfull steam into publicity, promotional offers, events and othergimmicks. Months later,

The Boss is Always Right

In many places of work, there is only one rule – “The Boss isAlways Right” or “The Boss is Never Wrong”. What if we knowthat the Boss is wrong? Well, simple ... refer back to the rule.All around us, we see and hear of double standards andinequality. The recent case of celebrity heiress Paris Hiltonbeing released after three days in Los Angeles jail sparkedfierce debates on the seemingly unequal

Conflict Resolution at Work

No two humans come out of the same mold and differencesin ideas and opinions are bound to arise. Differences lead toConflicts. When well-handled, conflicts are in effect good forthe organization as they often lead to creative ideas andchanges for the better. Conflicts become counterproductivewhen they give rise to enmity, hostility, tension, confusionand sabotage among the workers. If

Cope with Work Stress

It has been widely believed that the most stressful jobs arethose in the IT, nursing care, education, secretarial, andservice industries. There are also surveys that includedlawyers, engineers, marketers, and human resource personnelamong the most stressed professionals. Is it true that if youare in these professions, you must necessarily feel stressfulat work? Can there not be occupational

Leaders as Role Models

Everybody has a role model, someone who has done the samejob we are doing or taken the same path of life we are travelingon. Sometimes, we are embarrassed or are too ego-consciousto admit having a role model. The reality is that withouttapping on the knowledge and experience of the people whohave succeeded before us, we are likely to fall into the samepits that they could have fallen into or

Trust Gut Instincts and Intuition

Are decisions made by gut feelings good? Business writerMalcolm Gladwell seemed to think so. In his bestselling bookBlink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, he presentedcogent arguments on how decisions made in an instant, almostwithout thinking, stood up better than decisions made afteranalytical considerations. Dotted with examples like how afire-fighter suddenly knows when to leave a

Dreams, Goals, and Motivation

One of the important aspects of motivation is knowing whatwe want to achieve. Once we have that, we can go through aseries of goal-setting steps to state, define and execute ourgoals. This first step of knowing what we want is by no meanssimple. Try asking your children what they want to achieve.You will get answers ranging from scoring the perfect gradesin their examinations to being famous.