How to Show Compassion Without Compromising on Performance

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by Mark Mortensen, INSEAD, and Heidi K. Gardner, Harvard Law School

Many leaders think they have to choose between delivering results and supporting employees’ needs. They don’t – but doing both sustainably requires careful navigation.

At WD-40 Company, there are no teams. Instead, there are tribes. Tribe members look out for one another, feel a sense of belonging and share the company’s values and vision. Compassion is at the heart of the work culture at the consumer products manufacturer, which strives to create a community of highly engaged employees who deliver their best every day.

Chairman and former CEO Garry Ridge believes that when workers are cared for, they yield remarkable results. Caring does not mean coddling, he stresses, and this compassionate approach delivers business outcomes, produces quality products and benefits shareholders.

When Ridge took over as CEO in 1997, employee engagement was around 50 percent, market capitalisation was US$250 million, and WD-40 Company was primarily a domestic US business. By 2020, Ridge noted in a post on LinkedIn, it had transformed into a global enterprise with a market capitalisation of over US$2.5 billion and an employee engagement score of 93 percent.

WD-40’s success story shows that compassion is not antithetical to business outcomes. Indeed, the belief that leaders and companies can be either compassionate or high-performing, but not both, is a false dichotomy.

Cared-for workers fuel sustainable profitability

There is a growing demand for more compassionate leadership, and not just because the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the stresses of living and working in the modern world. People now look for jobs that will give them a sense of purpose and belonging, and expect to be treated with consideration and respect at work. They want leaders who listen and care about them, and who see them as humans and not just as workhorses. Continue reading →

How to stay focused when everything feels stressful and overwhelming

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BY ELIZABETH GRACE SAUNDERS

 

If everything feels chaotic, you’re not alone. These five strategies can help, says this time management coach.

 

In the past two years, we’ve seen more disruption than we typically see in decades. As if the pandemic of 2020 wasn’t enough, we’re now dealing with inflation increasing at the highest rate in more than 40 years, empty shelves in grocery stores, plummeting stock market tickers, and gas prices more than double what they were in 2020. (How I miss the good old days of $2 per gallon.)

In an attempt to slow down the runaway train of inflation, rising interest rates have put a squeeze on homebuyers with skyrocketing mortgage rates, and on employers, leading to news of a fresh wave of layoffs almost anytime you log into LinkedIn. Then there is the ongoing war in Ukraine and so many other situations big and small that can cloud our focus and distract our minds. No wonder sentiment was the lowest on record in June according to the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers consumer sentiment index.

In the midst of a chaotic present and an uncertain future, how do you stay productive and focus on what you can do, instead of getting consumed thinking about situations largely outside of your control? As a time management coach and as a human being who wrestles with these same questions in my day-to-day life, here are some of the best strategies I’ve found for continuing to get things done, and feel less overwhelmed:

Continue reading →

The Five C’s of Effective Leadership in A Hybrid World

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by Stuart Andrews

 

A leader’s role is to inspire their team and help them be their best selves. That means being open to feedback. The most effective business leaders are constantly adapting to changes in their environment. A hybrid world demands new ways of thinking and communicating. In this instance, effective global leaders will have to be outcome-oriented and unify their teams to collaborate effectively.

Of course, there will always be new challenges, and there will always be new tasks. Effective leaders need to remain open to learning, experimenting and adapting to new situations. Hybrid leadership is about balancing your voice with the voices of others, about having a vision and setting the course and about ensuring the stamina to see transformations through.

Above all other traits, effective leaders need to have integrity and a moral compass that guides their decision-making and their actions. According to a recent Gartner survey, only 24% of hybrid and remote workers report feeling connected to their organizational culture.

Managing In A Hybrid World

This changing business landscape requires different types of leaders who understand that “the old ways of doing business” are not effective in the new global economy. Continue reading →

Could Living Near the Office Make You a Better CEO?

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by Morten Bennedsen, INSEAD; Mario Daniele Amore, Bocconi University; and Birthe Larsen, Copenhagen Business School

 

 

 

Besides enjoying a shorter commute, living close to the office may allow CEOs to boost ties with employees and the firm’s bottom line.

Be it offering more career development opportunities, better work-life balance or bigger bonuses, companies are constantly experimenting with ways to boost employee morale and improve the work environment. Prior research shows that 84 percent of US executives believe their firms must strive to improve corporate culture, with 92 percent reckoning that achieving this would help increase company value.

Regardless of the firm, CEOs often have an outsized influence in shaping corporate culture. This can’t be written down in a contract, nor can it be adopted by simply emulating successful organisations. Instead, intangible and cultural factors related to a CEO’s personal traits are likely to play a significant role.

We set out to study how “neighbourhood CEOs” – which we define as CEOs with an affinity towards their local community – shape workplace conditions. What is the impact of having a CEO who lives closer to their office on the work environment, employee productivity and firm profitability? Continue reading →

The new work–life balance

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by Adam Bryant

 

The phrase seems increasingly outdated, given how much our work and our lives are now intertwined. It’s time for a new framework.

 

If you look up the history of work–life balance, you’ll find different takes on the concept’s origins. Many people give credit to Robert Owen, a Welsh manufacturer and the “father of British Socialism,” who decided that labor practices in the early 1800s were too demanding, and so started advocating for a balanced workday of “eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.”

In the 20th century, work–life balance became more of an aspirational lifestyle goal. For anyone who has ever juggled a busy job and raising kids (not to mention taking care of a house), the notion of work–life balance always seemed like a distant dream: a stress-free mix of rewarding work and plenty of quality time for the family, exercise, and sleep. But that’s not how life works, and, in some ways, this idealized sense of balance created a mirage that only served to frustrate people who tried to attain it.

The pandemic seemed to render work–life balance a laughable concept. As white-collar workers set up workstations at home, there was no longer a separation of job and personal time or space. So we need something new, something more useful, to help us think about balance in our lives.

Here’s an alternative model. It starts with the idea that every moment falls into one of three categories: want, should, or need. It seems to me that every decision we make starts, implicitly or explicitly, with a sentence that begins “I want to…,” “I should…,” or “I need to….” (The last one includes its close cousin, “I have to….”) If you accept these buckets, you can then start creating a pie chart of your life based on this categorization.

How much of your typical day, week, or month falls into each of those three categories? How much of your job is spent doing the things you want to do—ideally creating that state of flow in which your skills and talents are well-matched to the task at hand—versus the things you just muscle through because you should do them or need to do them. Continue reading →