Wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2012-Q12-Meta-Analysis-Research-Paper.pdf. After the tragic events of 9/11, a team of Harvard psychologists quietly “invaded” the US intelligence system. The team, led by Richard Hackman, wanted to determine what makes intelligence units effective. By surveying, interviewing, and observing hundreds of analysts across 64 different intelligence groups, the researchers ranked those units from best to worst. Then they identified what they thought was a comprehensive list of factors that drive a unit’s effectiveness—only to discover, after parsing the data, that the most important factor wasn’t on their list. The critical factor wasn’t having stable team membership and the right number of people. It wasn’t having a vision that is clear, challenging, and meaningful. Rather, the single strongest predictor of group effectiveness was the amount of help that analysts gave to each other.
The importance of helping-behavior for organizational effectiveness stretches far beyond intelligence work. Give, take, or match Reciprocity rings Dream on. Givers take all: The hidden dimension of corporate culture - McKinsey Quarterly - Organization - Talent. How Open Innovation is Solving Some of NASA's Trickiest Problems. As head of the Human Health and Performance Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Dr. Jeffrey Davis leads a team with a very unique charge: They are tasked with solving human health issues — in outer space. In all, Davis’ team is dealing with about 45 different health problems related to long-duration space flight — everything from bone loss and muscle decay to water recycling and food preservation. For some of these problems, Davis and his staff have the answers, or at least know where to find them. But for others, Davis admits, the answers can’t be found in-house — and that’s where the job gets tougher, especially in times of budget austerity. That was the situation Davis found himself in a few years back, as budget cuts limited his team’s research and development capability.
In response to that challenge, over the course of the past five years, Davis has helped implement a culture of “open innovation” not only among his own staff, but throughout the entire agency. Use 5 or More Social Networks? You're a Better Employee. Hey, bosses who block employees from using social media at work: You're doing it wrong. That's one conclusion that can be drawn from new data on the workplace by Evolv, a startup that monitors hundreds of metrics from Fortune 500 companies. Not only has Evolv determined that hourly employees who use social networks are more productive in general, but it seems the more social networks you use, the more productive you are.
Hourly employees who regularly used up to four social networks — such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn — made more sales or handled customer service calls faster than those who weren't on any social networks. They also tend to stick around for longer (94 days of tenure with a company on average, compared to 83 days for those who shun social media). Those who use five social networks or more are slightly better at converting sales and handling customer service than employees on four or fewer networks, by 1.5% and 2.8% respectively.
The shorter your first name, the bigger your paycheck - Quartz. Shorten it to Bill, Bob, Marc or a Cindy, if you want to work in the executive suite. That’s the messages from a new study by TheLadders, an online job matching site, which says every extra letter in a person’s first name may reduce her annual salary by $3,600. Since short and sweet may equal a bigger salary, the Christophers of the world who want to raise their net worths may want to change their professional designation to Chris, TheLadders’ Amanda Augustine said. That may work well for those who go from Michelle to Michele. TheLadders tested 24 pairs of names—Steve and Stephen, Bill and William, and Sara and Sarah, and in all but one case those with shorter names earned higher pay. (The exception: Larry and Lawrence, where the longer moniker made more money.) Its research is based on finding a linear trend in data from 6 million members, with 3.4% of them in CEO or other C-level jobs.
For a CEO, going with a nickname may make you more approachable and “more human,” said John L.