The problem with this approach is that a decade of research — conducted by us and our colleagues — demonstrates that our intuitions about how to turn money into happiness are misguided at best and dead-wrong at worst. Those televisions, cars, and houses? They have almost no impact on our happiness. The good news is that we now know what kind of spending does enhance our happiness — insight that’s valuable to consumers and companies alike.

Ken Blanchard probably did more in his book ‘The One Minute Manager’ then anyone to bring forth the concept of “catch people doing things right”. For some reason many leaders have the mentality that it is their role and duty to catch people doing things wrong. Once this kind of mentality permeates the culture of an organization, the employees become fearful. A swordwieling leader will never get the best from his employees. People may respond short term to this approach, but in the long term they will move on to another job. I ‘m amazed at how many leaders still think they have to be Attila the Hun. It is interesting to note, however, that those individuals who manage by fear are usually the most insecure.

This really made me think… I let my mind wander free, just waiting for something to come. Suddenly I saw myself as an explorer of ancient pyramids, and that made a lot of sense to me.

‘Why a pyramid explorer?’ they asked.

‘Because when you know where to look, you can find treasures inside places where
nobody has been before. I see people like temples, with hidden treasures just waiting to be brought out!’

IT is well known that when like-minded people get together, they tend to end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk. The same kind of echo-chamber effect can happen as people get news from various media. Liberals viewing MSNBC or reading left-of-center blogs may well end up embracing liberal talking points even more firmly; conservative fans of Fox News may well react in similar fashion on the right.

Many organisations are investing in training fail to get the most from their investment. Staff are sent on courses without being sufficiently clear about why they are attending the course. Staff attend courses without setting clear learning objectives for the course. They come back from a course and are not debriefed and set longer term learning goals. Here are some ideas for getting the most from your investment in training.